Palin’s Choice: Pro Trig

With the introduction of Governor Sarah Palin (R-Alaska) onto the national political scene, one thing is for sure: the pro-life/pro-choice … Continued

by Timothy Shriver

With the introduction of Governor Sarah Palin (R-Alaska) onto the national political scene, one thing is for sure: the pro-life/pro-choice divide is sure to become a significant issue in the coming election. We already know that John McCain is pro-life while Obama is pro-choice but there’s a new factor: Trig Paxson Van Palin, the infant son of the governor, who has Down syndrome. Trig could be a game changer.

Trig was born on April 18, 2008. By the Governor’s account, she and her husband were aware that Trig had Down syndrome early in the pregnancy but they chose not to abort him. Estimates are that close to 90% of couples who are confronted with an early Down diagnosis take the opposite approach and terminate. In most situations, Trig doesn’t make it.

Here’s what Governor Palin said when Trig was born: “Trig is beautiful and already adored by us. We knew through early testing he would face special challenges, and we feel privileged that God would entrust us with this gift and allow us unspeakable joy as he entered our lives. We have faith that every baby is created for good purpose and has potential to make this world a better place. We are truly blessed.”

Such a candidate is bound to invigorate the pro-life movement. But if they respond in their usual Supreme Court-focused, judgmental fashion, it won’t bring us any closer to reducing abortion in the United States. It hasn’t yet, and there’s no reason to think it will now. In the abortion debate, the law has proved a wholly ineffective strategy for promoting life.

What works?

Sarah Palin was not coerced into having Trig, she chose to have him. Therein lies the possibility of the moment.

Trig could be a high-profile example of how wonderful it can be to choose life, even in adversity, even when the conditions aren’t perfect. After all, the conditions are never perfect, but the promise of a newborn baby is that God’s love is. Somehow, despite everything, love is triumphant. The message: Love life. Choose life.

What if Trig were to trigger a new way of thinking on both sides of the political spectrum? A middle ground could emerge that embraces our shared values rather than emphasizing our differences. The two parties could agree that we should do everything we can to choose life while doing nothing to make the choosing illegal.

Barack Obama came close to this position in his acceptance speech last Thursday. Perhaps his most powerful moment was his attempt to establish a middle ground on issues like abortion and gay marriage. “We may not agree on abortion,” he said, “but surely we can agree on reducing the number of unwanted pregnancies in this country.”

But couldn’t he go one step further? Couldn’t he endorse the life choice and support counseling and support services for women who are open to carrying their pregnancies to term? And couldn’t Republicans make good on the pro-life rhetoric through a serious effort to support the needs of vulnerable children once they’re alive – by supporting child care, parent support, and community building?

Wouldn’t those who don’t believe in abortion be better served by trying to make life easier for struggling women rather than trying to fight the Supreme Court? And wouldn’t pro-choicers improve their standing by acknowledging the goodness of choosing life rather than pretending the decision carries no moral value?

Perhaps it’s naïve to hope for reconciliation in this treacherous debate, but this is a special time with extraordinary leaders from both parties.

Our dream of a people united has been wounded by years of name calling and misunderstanding. So why not ask for a fresh start, even on the spirituality of abortion. The bumper sticker has been around for years: “Choose life.” So let’s agree that couples should have the choice. But let’s also agree that the best choice is life.

Maybe Trig Palin could show us the way to unite behind that simple hope.

KBEETX writes Guess not everybody knows how to do an internet search. I’ll be a “helper”!Here’s another hint – it’s been a while since taking a government class, but I believe it was found in the 4th, 5th, and one other amendment that I cannot recall. I am sure your research will clue you in!

K

Abortion is a medical proceedure that is legally available to women and should continue to be. Those who see pro -choice as a moral or religious matter should relize that there is no such thing as a God (whatever the religion). Sorry if my comment offends those who choose to belive in myths and fairy tales as truth, but not as much as it offends me to have such silly beliefs brought into government. Religious beliefs should be left out of all government and medical issues. Religious groups are even exempt from paying taxes, no matter what the amount of incurred wealth. If you don’t pay you should not be able to play. Anyone with any common sense or intellegence should be able to see thru the thin veil of religion as a way to control others by fear. But that is your choice. Is it not? So, leave the rest of us be able to make our own choices.

Peoria Possum

No Jeff that’s not a choice. You get to breath is that a choice?

allen antrim

Attack Jesus, attack religion. Atheists believe in an idol too- themselves or humanity or some sort of drivel; atheism must be a mental construct in order to be viewed in mind and then acted upon (substance), the proof is here in these comments as “religion” occupies their minds even in opposition to it. Prove there is no God or prove that there is, this can’t be done, so you atheists are religious folks as well, your god is just a negative.

Melissa

Jeff in Los Angeles – Also, Bristol, the daughter “decided to keep the baby”. Does anyone here really think she had a choice? Her mother certainly wouldn’t have allowed her to terminate the pregnancy, and I’m sure the “young man” is going to marry Bristol because his mother would “terminate” him otherwise. The shotgun weddings didn’t work 40 years ago, and I seriously doubt it will work in today’s society either.I consider myself a feminist, pro-choice. I was raised by a stay-at-home mom, and working dad. I don’t believe a woman’s place is in the home, but if you’re going to “accept all the little gifts god gives you” (i.e. have all the sex you want without contraception), and god gives you 5 little gifts, and one is special needs, hello, your family needs you. One of you. Parenting in the 3-person is not the same. I’m happy for the Palin’s, they have money to do that. But it definately shows how much family really means to them.

Stephen

K:[Murder] is a medical proceedure that is legally unavailable to all and should continue to be. Those who see [murder] as a moral or religious matter should relize that there is no such thing as a God (whatever the religion). Sorry if my comment offends those who choose to belive in myths and fairy tales as truth, but not as much as it offends me to have such silly beliefs brought into government. Religious beliefs should be left out of all government and medical issues. Religious groups are even exempt from paying taxes, no matter what the amount of incurred wealth. If you don’t pay you should not be able to play. Anyone with any common sense or intellegence should be able to see thru the thin veil of religion as a way to control others by fear. But that is your choice. Is it not? So, leave the rest of us be able to make our own choices. What’s the difference?

Peoria Possum

Hmm, ok no God.

QuiverDaddy

Marc Edward writes:”Quiverdaddy claims I don’t consider a fertilized egg to have the same legal rights as my 6 year old son. I find the suggesstion rather stupid and very offensive. No need to be offended. My point is that at some point in time, even the most extreme view on the pro-abortion side will acknowledge that a life should be protected. You clearly believe your six year old should enjoy rights, but not a zygote. “”Can we agree that if a child is born outside the womb”Even you are bright enough to figure out that I do not believe children are “born outside the womb”. I should have said, born and then live outside the womb.As to my reference that both Obama and Hillary support infanticide, I stand corrected. I do not know of an instance where Hillary opposed legislation to protect babies born alive after a botched abortion. Obama opposed such legislation twice — at both the state and federal level. Infanticide in his view is permissible if the living child was born accidentally after a failed abortion attempt.You do not need to engage in name calling or refer to other people’s views as ‘crapola”. Remember, as a liberal you value tolerance above all else. Perhaps a little tolerance for an opposing view would bring some diversity into your life.I realize this is a “religious” board, but it was not religious views that brought me here. It was initially a link to Sally Quinn’s attacks on McCain’s running mate.Do not assume that all people who are pro-life are “religious” or that all who support abortion rights are “anti-religious”. Good people from both extremes and in the middle share a diversity of values and views beyond the abortion debate.

Peoria Possum

Dear Melissa,

faithandreason

Sparrow – I’m afraid you are the individual posting here who is ignorant of biology. Please stop spouting Planned Parenthood talking points and look at the actual science. A good way to look at that science is to go to any website that discusses fertility treatments or miscarriages. These sites generally tell you what is actually going on during the development of the fetus and clearly demonstrate that it is a developing human being who deserves protection. For example, you make the point that because the fetus resembles any “mammal” in development stage at 10-12 weeks, it is therefore less human and does not deserve protection – a simple lump of cells. However, you skip over the simplest of biological facts – that developing fetus is developing according to a unique DNA instruction set that will produce a fully developed human baby. No matter how much like other mammalian fetuses it looks like, it is NOT the same. The brain waives are different, circulatory system is different, nervous system is different and will continue to differentiate both before and after vaginal birth. The “gills” you speak of are not “gills” at all, these are pouches that develop into part of the face bones of the middle ear, and endocrine glands. Embryology has come too far for people like you to throw us back to the “they are just gills” nonsense.

Anonymous

” Peoria Possum:Hmm, ok no God.there isn’t any. A fetus is not a baby. a fertilized egg is not a baby. they can become one, just an an acorn can become a tree. But an acorn is not a tree.

Melissa

Peoria Possum:Oh please, drama queen. Sounds like I might have hit one of your little self-righteous nerves. And having sex when mommy told you not to is quite different than having an abortion.

Anonymous

“But an acorn is not a tree.”Once an acorn germinates and takes root- it is alive and growing- and will with time become an oak tree. Every beautiful towering oak tree you see began as an acorn.To stop a germinated acorn from becoming an oak tree you will have to uproot it and cause it to die.

Dawn

What a great article- I agree with what you wrote,” Wouldn’t those who don’t believe in abortion be better served by trying to make life easier for struggling women rather than trying to fight the Supreme Court? And wouldn’t pro-choicers improve their standing by acknowledging the goodness of choosing life…” Many in the pro-life movement are focused on overturning Roe when it might be better to focus on changing hearts,, promoting adoption and supporting women and families. We have laws against rape and yet people still rape, if we had laws against abortion, people would still abort. Instead lets looks at the underlying issues behind abortions..why..no money…no support…cant finish school and try to fix our social ills. Many people abort children who happen to have Down syndromes because they only want to raise a child who fits a narrow view of success- weeding out to leave only the strong and productive…sound familiar…Germany? I am pro-life and I will vote for Obama because I think his agenda will help more mothers keep their babies….and btw- for all of the haters out there…my daughter who happens to have Down syndrome is not a burden nor a saint…she is a citizen of the United States just like and she is deserving of respect.

Melissa

Dawn: Nicely put.

Anonymous

“it might be better to focus on changing hearts,, promoting adoption and supporting women and families.”To allow abortion to legally continue on the frail hope that you can save a few more babies lives is to make a pact with the devil. How long before you are choosing which of our infirmed and handicapped deserve life and which should be euthanised?

QuiverDaddy

K Wrote””Anyone with any common sense or intellegence should be able to see thru the thin veil of religion as a way to control others by fear. But that is your choice. Is it not? So, leave the rest of us be able to make our own choices. “Do you actually believe that anyone who believes differently than you do lacks common sense? Do you really believe people in Darfur who would willingly allow themselves to be beheaded rather than denounce their religiou are doing so out of fear?Lets assume the Martyrs and the Christians (not to mention Muslims, Jews and Buddhists) who’ve suffered persecution at the hands of others who did not share their beliefs were all adherants of some bogus mythology and their views on political issues are therefore invalid — or better yet, let’s assume anyone who is involved in a not-for-profit charity or ministry should have their political views invalidated because the organizations or charities they’re affiliated with do not pay taxes.So you declare a lack of sense among all these people either because they disagree with you or the organizations to which they belong do not pay taxes. Guess what? YOU ARE STILL subject to laws made by people who are imposing their morality on others!At some point, you have to recognize that you can’t invalidate every law that is somehow traceable to a religious or moral belief because even “secular humanists” have moral and ethical points of view.A common pro-life argument equates abortion with murder. I pointed out below that if we apply the same “moral hands off” value to things like murder and kiddie porn that your side applies to abortion, there would be no basis for many of the laws we abide by.Somewhere along the line, you could say, “no we shouldn’t permit murder — not because it’s immoral but because that person has a right to life.” First, we have to ask, does a person really have a natural right to life? Who says so? On what authority do you enjoy a right to life?Thomas Jefferson, noted by his contemporaries as an anti-Christian and as an athiest nevertheless acknowledged Natural Law. His reference to “the laws of nature and of nature’s god” spoke to fundamental rights you and I have because having such rights is “natural” — life, liberty and pursuit of happiness.Thomas Jefferson, while holding to those ideals in principle still owned slaves and gave them away as wedding gifts or took at least one of them as a concubine. The “father of liberty” had his part in prepetuating an institution that denied other human beings of their fundamental natural rights.How is the right to life different? Separated from the religion you find offensive, the right to life still exists as one of the three natural conditions acknowledged by libertarian thinkers from Locke to Jefferson and still today… Libertarians may support abortion, but they do respect the right to life as a fundamental natural right of all persons.So the debate is not about religion or whether churches and charities pay taxes (therefore negating the opinions of their adherants). It rests on how we as a culture define personhood and at what point a person is… a person. I hope I’m not being too presumptive in assuming you believe YOU are a person. At what point do you believe you had the unailenable rights that come with personhood? People who’ve been charged with murder of pregnant women have also been charged with “infanticide”. How can that be if there was no infant? What if a pregnant woman didn’t declare her child a person? Are we coming to the point where such murder cases would have to be decided on whether a murdered woman made some legally recognizable declaration that she believed her unborn child to be a person? That’s pattently absurd!It should not be up to one person to decide whether another is entitled to a right to life without due process. In the case of “baby vs. tissue mass”, a better standard than the opinion of the mother should be arrived at. Otherwise, we become a culture of the arbitrary with life and death decisions being made by emotion alone.If you can put away your prejudices for a moment and answer this: “At what point did you become a person entitled to your natural rights of life, liberty and property?”, then there is a point of agreement — at least from that point on. As for me, I have no worries that my life will be affected for the worse because some church down the block is not paying property taxes. What they do does not affect me so long as I retain the freedom I have to agree with them, disagree with the, or ignore them. I fear movement athiests more than all the Christians, Jews, Muslims and Eastern Mysticists combined.

sparrow

faithandreason- you have far more of one than you do of the other. (faith, of course).first of all I was responding to quiverdaddy’s statement:”Do you understand that most women do not discover that they are pregnant until the baby has a heartbeat and discernible human characteristics — at 10 to 12 weeks.”. I was refuting his contention at that stage the discernible characteristics are only human. this has nothing to do with protecting it- those are words you’re putting in my mouth. And in fact i minored in biology and so have studied embryology, something which you have only done on the internet. the internet is not a great way to learn science.you said: “However, you skip over the simplest of biological facts – that developing fetus is developing according to a unique DNA instruction set that will produce a fully developed human baby” No argument. But every cell in your body has that dna and under the proper circumstances a cell can be induced to undergo mitosis and even develop into a fetus. So a fertilized egg is not the only group of cells capable of life. “The “gills” you speak of are not “gills” at all, these are pouches that develop into part of the face bones of the middle ear, and endocrine glands. ” Yes- that doesn’t negate the original statement. No where do I assert that we have gills today. the little mermaid aside, yours is an argument the religious right loves to use- all the trappings of science without an ounce of scientific thought.Nor does yours address the fact that tetrapods have similar stages of development and structures in the embryo. I never said “just gills”- those are your words but then don’t let my actual post get in the way of your argument

Cat

Thank you for an excellent article. Shame about all the nasty posters!As for the eugenics fans promoting their agenda, don’t forget Hitler started his genocides by murdering people with mental handicaps. No one complained. So he branched out, didn’t he? And one rather influential WWII figure – Charles de Gaulle – despite his right-wing politics, became one of Nazism’s greatest foes. He had a much-beloved daughter with Down Syndrome, Anne.As the parent of a child with Down Syndrome, I applaud Sarah Palin’s decision to keep Trig. That took great courage and great love.

Anonymous

Tim, great article. I love your work don’t ever stop writing!

Anonymous

“Once an acorn germinates and takes root- it is alive and growing- “every cell of an acorn is already alive or it couldn’t germinate in the first place. You body is comprised of cells that are alive or you’d simply be dead.

Anonymous

quiverdaddy:As for me, I have no worries that my life will be affected for the worse because some church down the block is not paying property taxes. What they do does not affect me so long as I retain the freedom I have to agree with them, disagree with the, or ignore them.”Pro-choice points exactly. And the Pro-lifers will remove that freedom of choice.

Marc Edward

Cat “As for the eugenics fans promoting their agenda, don’t forget Hitler started his genocides by murdering people with mental handicaps”Actually I think the first people who were sent to concentration camps (and this was long before the “Final Solution”) were communists, liberals and intellectuals.

Anonymous

“every cell of an acorn is already alive or it couldn’t germinate in the first place. You body is comprised of cells that are alive or you’d simply be dead.”Of course- just like any egg or sperm is alive. It is germination/conception that is the wonderful gift of new living and growing life.

Anonymous

“Actually I think the first people who were sent to concentration camps (and this was long before the “Final Solution”) were communists, liberals and intellectuals.”Not true.

QuiverDaddy

Marc Edward wrote:”I’ll add that I prefer talking/arguing with conservatives because conservatives are often more interesting and less annoying than my fellow liberals can be. However I do not have a high tolorance for lying, and saying Obama likes infantacide is a lie.”I would never accuse Obama of “liking” infanticide — that clearly would be a lie. However more to the point in discussion, he supported infanticide in his opposition to the BA/IPA by stating that a mother should not be punished with a baby. His views are clearly stated in his own words here: By definition, infanticide is the intentional killing of an infant. In the case of the BA/IPA, the law was intended to prevent people from killing infants after an attempted abortion by depriving them of life sustaining measures you would provide to any other baby. The only objection he voiced was whether the language had protections that considered the health of the mother… So he said. He still opposed both the federal and state versions that had such language added in.Does that mean he LIKES infanticide? Of course not. It means that by virtue of supporting the practice of allowing babies born alive to wither and die, his political position on abortion trumps considerations of the right to life.

Michelle S.

Oh, if only Sarah and her daughter would have (had) abortions. Then the looney liberal left would have something to rejoice in. Stop the slaughter! McCain/Palin in 2008!

Joyce

The most common mistake made by pro-lifers is that pro-choice believers always believe in abortion. When what they actually believe in is a woman making the choice that is best for her and her family. I know many pro-choice believers that would never consider abortion personally, but would never presume to tell another woman what is right for her.

Anonymous

CAT:No, it took religion. She’s pro-life. Not deciding to keep Trig would be a mortal sin I would imagine. Therefore, she would probably have hell in her future, dontcha think?I’m not pro-abortion. I simply am tired of hearing how brave and loving a choice it was for her to keep the baby when everything she stands for, lives her life by, would not allow her any other choice but to face damnation.Thoughts?

Melissa

That last post to CAT was from me. Forgot to put my name in.

Katie

Michelle says:”I would like to point out that christians beleive god created everything. Now if that is so, why do animals eat there young when something is wrong with them? I’m not saying we should eat our young. I am just saying that maybe aborting a child that couldn’t live life to its fullest and survive on its own isn’t murder.”Michelle, the difference between animals and humans is that 1) humans are capable of compassion/empathy for the weak, animals are not. That’s one of the traits that makes humans different from animals. 2) Humans are capable of creating technology and social programs that can allow the “weak” to live life the fullest (everyone’s idea of “fullest” is different) and survive on their own but with the assistance of others. Animals, obviously, don’t have those means. Humans, unlike animals, can choose to use their intelligence, creativity and compassion to help the weak, or they can choose to destroy them.

whozzat

If she wants to keep a her baby in spite of Down’s, great for her.But here’s what gets me: if she is pro-life and was going to keep the baby no matter what, what is she doing having genetics tests done? The risks are small, but they’re not zero, and if the information you get isn’t going to influence your decision, why are you taking any risk?

K

Stephen:The difference is your point of view. If you think abortion is murder you do not have to have one. The option to terminate a pregnancy is up to the individual and HER medical provider. Why do others feel it necessary to take away an individuals choice? I am sure it is much harder for men to understand as they can not give birth or choose not to. For many years women did not have choices available to them (birth control, legalized abortion etc.). These lack of choices left a lot of women vulnerable and victimized. We have worked hard over time to ensure woman finally have control over their own bodies and are not about to give it up!

Kert

From the argument below (from K), I guess we can loot his posessions, enslave him, and if we feel like it, kill him. The laws that protect him were brought about because of the dignity that God gives us. At least that is what our founders wrote. Since he doesn’t want us involving God, I guess we are free to do as we please. Obviously, I’m trying to make a point here. K deserves the same protections and rights all men receive and I believe this with all my heart. You don’t have to believe in God but there are consequences the other way. Otherwise I am no more important that a bug that is squashed because it annoys someone. You might come to the same conclusion without including God but you also may not. That is why societies without strong convictions from God have frequently gone into oblivion. Without a sense of who God made us we are nothing more than pawns to whoever is in charge. That’s not a place I want to be.As for abortion, we are now truly understanding how much a fetus is really human. Science is proving what pro-life people have been saying. A fetus contains everything necessary to be human and is unique as any human. They may not be fully formed until the 3rd month but they are truly human. Since God has given everyone in humanity the right to live, from the smallest to the largest, we should not deny that priviledge to anyone. That is why believe abortion should be illegal. We all have the right to live. I wouldn’t want to deny that to anyone. Would you?I’m sorry that people have a hard time believing in God because of actions in the past. I wish they would look at what God really intended, instead of finding examples that feed their belief. Truly God does not restrict us but allows us to be free to do what is right. That way we don’t wake up one day and reallize we’ve wasting our life on things that are pointless.

Melissa

Sarah Palin chose to continue a pregnancy that will result in a life-long comittment to a child. Good for her. Many people make that same decision each day. I would do the same thing. What I don’t agree with is that she believes she (and other anti-choice proponents) should make that choice for others. She doesn’t trust me, or other women in the US to be trusted with the same choices, but she expects us to trust her to govern us. I don’t think so. She wants to withhold education from young people, like her daughter, about pregnancy prevention, because she doesn’t trust the young people in our country to make the “right” decision in her view. Her own daughter didn’t make the “right” decision, but we should trust her to decide that for us. We should trust her to govern us. I don’t think so.

Mike

Hmmm…nothing like some facts to interfer with the Pro-Life camp.I remember the picture well. A Black man, charred beyond recognition, hanging from a tree.Behind him, a large crowd of smiling people made up of men, women and children. All of them Christian and therefore Pro-Life.Pro-Life people are pretty selective when it comes to which lives are precious.

Cat

Mark Edward I disagree. Your point of view has everything to do with eugenics. You obviously know nothing about how debilitating certain handicaps are and are not. As for the Final Solution, you need to check your history.As for Anonymous commenting on the fact Sarah Palin made her decision because of her religious beliefs, I cannot speak for that. I am an atheist who does not think abortion should be used to promote a eugenics agenda. I am a humanist.

What estimates?

“Estimates are that close to 90% of couples who are confronted with an early Down diagnosis take the opposite approach and terminate.”Could you cite this? All I ever see are “some studies” or “studies say,” and those are always from less than objective second-hand sources. Could someone point out which studies say up to 90% of babies with Downs are terminated? Thanks.

Cashmere

I am pro-choice, I feel that is the right of the woman to decide if she wants to keep her child. Because no one can really judge,when we dont know whether or not-if she can handle the finacial aspect of it.Now, I still think that if a woman is raped or incest occurs,then she should have that right to terminante the pregnancy.

BTM

To Whozzat:I can think of some very good reasons to have the tests done, even if I know I’ll let the baby come to term no matter what. First, if I have advance warning that my child will have Downs syndrome or another potentially debilitating illness, I can begin medical preparations, learning what to expect at various stages of the child’s life, learning how best to accommodate the child’s needs, and just generally arming myself with information. I can find specialists in advance. I can learn which questions to ask.Aside from the practical matters, I can get used to the idea that the baby won’t be “just like me” healthwise. By adjusting my expectations beforehand, I can be more emotionally prepared to find and enjoy the good things this child will bring to the world. I’m sure I would love the child whether sick or healthy, but I’d much rather rid myself of the emotional baggage before he or she is born.YMMV, of course, but please consider it food for thought.

Anonymous

Mike: I remember the picture well. A Black man, charred beyond recognition, hanging from a tree.Behind him, a large crowd of smiling people made up of men, women and children. All of them Christian and therefore Pro-Life.Pro-Life people are pretty selective when it comes to which lives are precious*************Huh! What are you talking about. I love how libs try to interject some historic event (I don’t doubt happened) but when? What time-frame? A true Pro-Life advocate would be appaled by this scene not celebrate it.

Cashmere

I am pro-choice, but it’s still the woman’s decision, because we trully dont know-if she’s capable to handle the financial side of it, It may be her only way out, not to provide a life of hardship on the child.

GOP girl

Oh, if only Sarah and her daughter would have (had) abortions. Then the looney liberal left would have something to rejoice in.Stop the slaughter!McCain/Palin in 2008!********No the looney left would not rejoice in it it would be more of that finger pointing. They would rejoice in the way they could point a finger and say “So Palin is again abortions for everyone but herself, how hypocritical that is” See that is what the looney left can’t stand about this situation. This woman not only talks the talk the walks the walk. Not only with her Trig but now with supporting her daughter who is pregnant out of wedlock.Amen to McCain/Palin 2008!!!

Anonymous

“Anonymous writes Moot point as murder is against the law.”Marc E you bring up a valid point. In the same way that we no long call pro-abortion what it is- (to ABORT- intentionally cause the expulsion of (an embryo or fetus) before it is viable thereby ending life). We should call Honour Killing – Honour Choice thereby shading the fact that a daughter/sister isn’t valued and has been killed by family members.Or we can continue the work to make abortions illegal as they were before 1973..

Mark

My brother has Down syndrome. When they say that 90% of women who know that they are going to have a Down child choose to abort, what they don’t tell you is that that is 20,000 Down children per year. If we say that it is okay to kill or eliminate people like my brother simply because they might suffer or we might suffer, then that is morally wrong. That logic has dangerous implications for how we treat everyone in our society. Even though the law permits abortion of Down syndrome people, it is morally wrong. Imagine if they find a gene for autism or Alzheimer’s. People will start aborting those people as well.

food for thought

Having undergone in vitro fertilization, my husband and I now have one 8-celled pre-embryo (no, not an embryo as many believe) frozen at our fertility clinic. We plan to transfer this pre-embryo into my uterus next month in hopes of it implanting and becoming a pregnancy. Our 8-celled pre-embryo is the result of the in vitro fertilization of an egg and a sperm. Thus, this is post-conception, but pre-implantation. I would encourage any of you pro-life commenters to reply to my post and tell me if you believe my frozen pre-embryo is a human being worthy of legal rights? If so, then you should be contacting your congressional representatives, because if I were not transferring this pre-embryo into my uterus, my fertility clinic would be asking me if I wanted to 1) donate my pre-embryo to research or 2) dispose of it. Both of which I am legally entitled to choose. If you truly believe that life begins at *conception*, then I have a human being frozen and stored in a fertility clinic — in fact, millions of human beings are currently frozen and stored in clinics around the world, and their legal rights are being violated as we type. It makes much more sense to say that (even though I don’t believe this) that life begins at *implantation*. Many fertilized pre-embryos never implant in a woman’s uterus and are naturally disposed of in an early miscarriage. These are not human beings. They are, however, fertilized eggs. If you think rationally, logically, even religiously, you will have to admit that a fertilized egg is not a human life. It simply is not. Thus, morning-after contraception is NOT murder or even abortion. Before ultrasound technology, it was commonly accepted that fetuses were not deserving of legal recognition or rights until the “quickening” — when a woman could feel the fetus’ movement. Before that time, nobody knew about the specific stages of fetal development, and it was believed that the fetus was simply part of a woman’s body. Even though we can now see exactly how a fetus develop, it is still rational to believe that a fetus doesn’t deserve legal recognition or rights until the pregnancy is 19+ weeks along, at which point the pregnancy becomes visible, the fetus begins to move, and within 2 or 3 weeks the fetus becomes potentially viable outside the woman’s body. Before this time, we should all back away from a woman’s uterus and let her decide (along with input from her partner and doctor). One more comment from me — please take a moment to think about this: the ban on federal funding of stem cell research in the name of protecting pre-embryos has actually done more damage to the pro-life cause than all the abortions in history. The reason is simple: without federal funding, we still have very little understanding of conception, implantation, embryonic development — all of the things that would help make assisted reproduction a much more exact science, resulting in fewer frozen pre-embryos, fewer multiple pregnancies (with resulting premature births/deaths and birth defects), and fewer multiple-pregnancy reductions (in which implanted embryos are terminated to increase the chances for success of the pregnancy and the health of the remaining embryos). Thoughts?

F

How can anyone possibly claim that Sarah Palin is pro-life? Pro-existence possibly, but pro-life?? You are not pro-life, and you do not stand for traditional family values, if you abandon your 4-days-old severely handicapped infant to go back to work — and an extremely demanding work on top of that.What I see in her is a completely selfish woman who uses her son’s handicap to gain political support for herself, while obviously not caring a bit about the needs of the child. Shame on her, I say, for letting an innocent child pay the price for her hunger for power!A woman who will not even take responsibility for her own children, that is certainly not a woman I would choose to take responsibility over a whole country!

ACM2

The key to this is that Palin “chose” to continue her pregnancy because that was in line with her beliefs and values. The issue is that, if she was allowed to make her own choice, why should other people not be granted the same freedom?

greg

So many comments here focus on the mom’s right to “choose life” and how wonderful of her to keep the baby even though he has Down’s. But what about the baby?I know all about living with Down’s. My twin brother (who died at age 53) had DS. My father helped found the AHRC which is now the NARC. I was active in DS awareness programs all my youth. I also worked professionally with DS people for years. Our family did everything to try to give John, my brother, the best that life could offer.I cannot stand the typical comments by people that DS people are “happy, friendly, bringers of joy”. This sounds nice but it is nowhere near the reality. Here is the reality:John suffered all his life because he was different. He was constantly stared at when in public – in the supermarket, in church, at the beach….anywhere in public. And the stares were not friendly or curious, they were the “eew” kinds of stares. As he got older, and less cute, there was no place for him in normal society. Yet he did not want to be placed with other DS kids, he wanted to be with normal people. Looking back on his life, I would say he was painfully lonely, frustrated and left out. As he aged he became more marginalized from the mainstream, having to live with mentally disabled people in a facility in Ohio.There is no silver lining to his story, although people offer the glib rationalizations of the inexperienced. Having DS is a curse. It is a HUGE handicap and a lonely, miserable affliction. To voluntarily bring a DS child into the world is not something I could do to another soul. And if there is some vengeful God out there that will punish me, then I’ll voluntarily send my soul to hell to spare another the curse of a life with DS.

Just Consider

“Now we know that for those who love God all things are working together for good–for those whom with deliberate purpose He has called.The Palin’s grandchild will be just a bit younger than Trig. Bristol’s baby and Trig will grow up together. Trig will no longer be the youngest child doted on by older sisters. He will have a companion in Bristol’s baby who will look out for him and encourage him to keep trying new things.God Bless You Bristol’s Baby-In-Waiting. May You Be Strong and Healthy and Have A Nurturing Heart For Trig.

Anonymous

Don’t you get it? This is what “pro choice” means. Sarah Palin CHOSE to give birth to a child with Down’s. This is a perfectly valid choice for which she should not be criticized. Part of being pro-choice is the belief that women should get to decide for themselves what happens to their bodies. If the government can force you to give birth, it is quite easy for the government to step into the opposite role, as the Chinese government has, and force abortions. It may sound crazy but these are two sides of the same coin. It’s not so crazy, in the days before women in this country had the right to choose, the US government did perform forced sterilizations.

Anonymous

Big deal! Sarah Palin has a boy with Down symdrome!. I believe she made a good choice for herself. I would have made the same choice. But I do not expect other women to do this because I can’t walk on their shoes. One thing I will never understand about the “pro-life” people: are you pro-life only when it comes to the conception/pregnancy/birth or are you thinking about the rest of the child’s life? Not every woman has a loving family, good friends and the necessary support to raise a child. Especialy when it comes to a child with special needs. What I know by working with people with disabilities is that there are far too many families with no support and way to many children being abused and neglect. Is this “life”, the life we wanted for all children? If the right to choose is taken away, it should be replaced with more than moral arguments.

Concerned The Christian Now Liberated

RU-486, the abortion/life ending pill is now available on-line without prescription. Therefore, the decision for ending said life involves only the carrier of said life. (or as Ryan Haber noted, “in some rare cases, her own life”).

Cat

Greg, I think you are attributing your own attitudes, your own bitterness and your own embarrassment to your brother.My daughter is aware that she has Down Syndrome and is aware that she is different and she does not care. What she hates most of all is being considered just a person with a handicap. Let her list 100 things she is, Down Syndrome is not on her list.As for debilitating handicaps, doctors may be hypocritically encouraging the aborting of fetuses with DS, but they are also contributing to the massive increase in infants with cerebral palsy through designer twin and multiple births and saving in extremis premature babies.I know a great number of people with DS and with cerebral palsy and I can assure you cerebral palsy is usually a much more serious disability, as is autism. The difference is those two disabilities cannot be detected prior to birth.Hypocrisy reigns.

Kathy E

“Mommie Dearest” (Governor Palin) chose to give birth to Trig, a special needs child with down syndrome. For the sake of ambition she hands the nurturing of her special needs baby off to others. Governor Palin’s “Pro-life values” should extend beyond the baby leaving the birth canal. Ambition in a black man is “uppity”. Ambition in wealthy white “Mommie Dearest” is “selfless”. We haven’t come so far after all.

Marc Edward

Mark writesNobody is saying it’s OK to kill your brother. However a couple expecting a child can test for Downs and abort based on that decision, and that is their right. It’s not an “immoral decision” because they might well not be up to caring for a child with Downs. It’s not up to you to decide.Anonymous writes Moot point as murder is against the law.”Marc E you bring up a valid point. In the same way that we no long call pro-abortion what it is’You can call me pro-abortion if you want, and I can call you anti-choice, but it wouldn’t be polite. I am pro-choice because I believe in trusting women to make the choice that is best for them and their families.(to ABORT- intentionally cause the expulsion of (an embryo or fetus) before it is viable thereby ending life). “We should call Honour Killing – Honour Choice”Why? The people who carry out Honor Killing like what it’s called, and I have not been impressed by their argument that it has anything to do with honor what so ever. Honor Killing is an outgrowth of a patriarchical society and (primitive) tribalism, and it’s carried out by cowardly, weak men, IMO. “thereby shading the fact that a daughter/sister isn’t valued and has been killed by family members.”When you make flip, silly comments you undermine all your other arguments about “life”. I highly doubt you know much about honor killing or where it’s carried out or why. The only thing you are showing is a disrespect for women and a disrespect for your own viewpoint.”Or we can continue the work to make abortions illegal as they were before 1973..”You big government types – you have so little faith in your own views that you want the government the enforce your views on everybody.Cat writesNo it doesn’t. Eugenics, as I understand it, is about killing off people who are not up to a certain standard as a policy that’s “good for the nation” because it “kills off the weak”. I would never advocate that anybody kill anybody other than in self-defense.”You obviously know nothing about how debilitating certain handicaps are and are not.”Gee, my nephew has Spina Bifida, I’ve taken a courses at UNC-CH specificially about the problems kids can have (rather depressing), and I had to be advised by doctors during three different pregnancies about what every test was about. Other than that I “know nothing”.”As for the Final Solution, you need to check your history.”Or you could just inform me. I know Hitler started sending his political opposition off to concentration camps (not like the ones used in the Final Solution) pretty early on. I am not familiar with his plans to kill handicaped people (know they existed but don’t know details), so I don’t know what date it started. In the USA people who have problems might be treated rather well, or they might be left to rot in the street, depending on where you live. If a mother does not have the means to care for a handicaped child and the social services are not there, I am not about to judge whatever decision she makes about her pregnancy.

sparrow

food for thought- wonderful post. thank you.=============Abortion is not whether or not a fetus is human. I know of no woman who gets pregnant with the fetus of a cow. Or a dog. Or a fish. They are not fully formed until 16 weeks and not viable outside the womb. In biological terms they are parasites on the mother. I’m sure that will freak out many people but it refers to the way a fetus is nourished and lives during the gestation period.Removing a non viable fetus, or taking a morning after pill is not infanticide. Infants are fully formed and viable outside the womb. Semantics is only playing with the issue, not addressing the truth of the matter. At what point in its development is a fetus a baby? I am pro choice, to a point. Once a fetus develops to the point where it is fully formed and viable, I don’t believe we should allow abortion. 5 months- too late. If a woman hasn’t figured out she’s pregnant by her 4th month, she is truly a fool. For myself I don’t believe in aborting a child with DS, but that is my own personal choice. On one level I can’t entirely disagree that eugenics doesn’t play a part, but abortion is not about eugenics. It’s about a woman’s right to make decisions regarding her own body. Pro-lifers have no concern for the mother, nor do they show much interest once a baby is born. So I say this- to those who want the right to tell a woman what she can and cannot do with her body, that you accept a reciprocal demand. I demand you either take care of the child or give me your kidney. Because once you cross that line of removing the right to make decisions regarding her own body, you open up the law to then think: this guy needs a kidney. You got 2. give up one because its the “christian” thing to do. If I can tell a woman what to do with her womb, I can certainly tell a man what to do with his kidney.

pinky

I’m confused. This woman insists on having this baby, but how much is she really there to take care of this DS kid? And where was she while her teenage daughter was having sex? Sorry, I’m a feminist from the word “go” but there’s something wrong with this picture. As in: if family values mean so much to her, why is she not devoting a few years to her family – which is clearly in need of some attention at this point? Yes, we do have choices. If we make the choice to have a DS baby, we make the choice to be responsible for that child’s care. Who is caring for this child?

Cat

Mary Rose, thank you for the link. It is marvelous. Bravo Special Olympics. Mark Edward, unlike you I do not have endless hours to polemicize on the internet. So you can Google all this information for yourself. You will remember it more if you search it out yourself.

VOR

AM I THE ONLY ONE WHO THINKS IT IS THE WORST FORM OF CRUELTY TO BRING SUCH A CHILD TO LIFE? ONE THAT WILL NEVER BE INDEPENDENT OR HAVE A CHILD OF THEIR OWN. WHEN THE PROBLEM IS KNOWN AND THE CHOICE IS AVAILABLE. IT MAKES ME SAD TO SEE THE PAIN AND SUFFERING CAUSED BY MISGUIDED RADICALS AND FUNDAMENTALISTS. HOW IS IT THAT 90% OF THESE PREGNANCIES ARE TERMINATED BUT 99% OF PEOPLE GIVE LIP SERVICE TO THE ALTERNATIVE. IT ISN’T FOR SELFISH REASONS THAT PEOPLE MAKE THE CHOICE IT’S COMPASSION.

k-dub

Trig’s mother may go to work, but Mr. Mom is at home and has been since Palin became governor due to possible conflict of interest. If she is pushed off the ticket because of her choice and/or her daughter’s choice, then its just as much as step backward as rolling back Roe v. Wade. I hope she stays on and I hope Obama wins — that’s victory for American women.

Marc Edward

Wow Greg that was powerful testimony. Nothing I could add would make it more powerful. You are right – people like to paint rosy pictures, as if life were a feel-good Hollywood movie, where anyone who has a problem need only “be good” and they will end up like Forrest Gump. Would that our pro-life friends here would read your words and dedicate their energy, instead of fighting our constitution rights, making places where your brother would feel welcome and useful. Sorry for your pain, and sorrier for your brother’s pain.

VOR

TEST

pinky

So taking responsibility for her choice to have a DS baby is to have her husband at home to take care of him? Interesting reasoning. I guess that was an easy choice for her, because she doesn’t have to stay home with the kid. She goes out to work every day and leaves the havoc of her choice(s) behind her……. for someone else to deal with on a day-to-day basis.

April

The bottom line is that women need a choice. Is it good for a child to be born to a mother who doesn’t have an education, can only work for minimum wage at Wal-Mart, and passes the kid off to day care or others to take care of, and put her child at risk battery or sexual abuse while she is at work barely making ends meet? Is this the lifestyle a child deserves? I think not. Regardless of a person’s position on abortion, women need the choice to decide what is right for their lives and their potential child’s lives. A child deserves more than breathing air and “life” – it deserves to be wanted, loved, and cared for as a human being not a burden. By giving women the choice, we are respecting the lives of the living, and the unborn.

Marc Edward

Thanks for the challange CAT.

Typical WP

Posted by:I certainly hope so.

Tom

Quote from VOR:AM I THE ONLY ONE WHO THINKS IT IS THE WORST FORM OF CRUELTY TO BRING SUCH A CHILD TO LIFE? ONE THAT WILL NEVER BE INDEPENDENT OR HAVE A CHILD OF THEIR OWN. WHEN THE PROBLEM IS KNOWN AND THE CHOICE IS AVAILABLE.I certainly hope you are indeed the only person who thinks that way, and I use the word “think” loosely. I have known several people who have Down’s Syndrome, and they are some of the most wonderful, guileless, loving people you could imagine. Remember, there are varying degrees of disability with Down’s Syndrome, and I have known people who run the gamut from highly functioning to barely functioning, and none of their parents regret making the choice to breing their child into the world. It’s not an easy road, but it can be more fulfilling than you could ever suspect. Instead of criticizing her for the sake of your pro-abortion platform, how about wishing her well?And on the abortion front, let’s remember that Barack Obama is the product of an unwed teenage white mother and a black man who wasn’t going to be in the picture. If abortion were legal 47 years ago the 2008 nominee might be someone very different. Like Hillary.

Anonymous

“Trig’s mother may go to work, but Mr. Mom is at home and has been since Palin became governor due to possible conflict of interest.”Then the point is that he is only home for political reasons- possible conflicts of interest. Not because he needs to take care of the kids. It’s because of her career. And don’t get me wrong. there is nothing wrong with that except the majority of parents in this country don’t have that option. Most families have both parents working out of necessity.

katie

Vor says:”AM I THE ONLY ONE WHO THINKS IT IS THE WORST FORM OF CRUELTY TO BRING SUCH A CHILD TO LIFE? ONE THAT WILL NEVER BE INDEPENDENT OR HAVE A CHILD OF THEIR OWN. WHEN THE PROBLEM IS KNOWN AND THE CHOICE IS AVAILABLE.”So we are going to write off anyone who isn’t independent and can’t have children? That would be a lot of people you would be killing. Every single person on this planet will lose some degree of independence and there are millions of people worldwide (disabled or not) who don’t have kids. You logic on that one is wierd! By the way, there are lots of disabled adults who are independent and do have children and families. Don’t make assumptions! And don’t try to determine what constitutes “happiness” and what doesn’t for other people.

jane doe

This is getting too “white trashy- trailer park” for a VP candidate..one kid is preggers, one is down syndrome, one is going off to the military due to behavior problems..what next..too many distractions

Tony Gillottes

Another totally misguided attempt by Christians to proselytize their phony beliefs. This woman (Palin) is totally irresponsible. She allegedly decides to have this DS kid on her own, but I wonder what went into that decision? Did she say,”I am willing to suspend my life in favor of taking care of a child I know will live a very limited life?” No, she made the calculation, just as its seen in every campaign picture, that someone else (her daughter) will be taking care of the child. Forget about the husband, he seems to be like those black males who impregnate and then disappear. In his case, up the snowbound trails to his gratuitous victories in the annual Iron Dog dogsled races. How much time does he take away from training for that arduous contest in order to stay home and take care of their DS kid? Then her daughter turns up PG. And there is no answer, no consequences to why that is so. Just a bit of we still love you honey. But, the fact is that the parents were so busy in the modern pursuit of their two job careers that they did not notice that their daughter was stepping out at night. Whew! What a load of hog wash desparate republicans are prepared to swallow in the name of preserving their family values campaign.But, at least, the media (Time, Wash. Post, Politico et al) are starting to weigh in and reveal the ugliness of Palin, the premier politician of the Yukon. On ward you huskies, onward to victory in the next election.Tony Gillotte

sparrow

we’re called Pro-choice, not Pro- let’s abort all DS children. It’s great that Palin and her family are choosing not to abort, but the key work is “choosing.” It they have that right, so do the rest of us.

VOR

Well said. The comment was in poor taste. I know a person that made the decision and I hope it is never one I have to make. please consider my comments withdrawn

Anonymous

“Forget about the husband, he seems to be like those black males who impregnate and then disappear” gee- thanks for injecting a totally useless racial remark into the discussion. There are PLENTY of white men who have done the same thing. PLENTY. I think you’d do better in the republican camp than in the democrats.

Park

Is there no room in this debate for the concept of contraception? Isn’t that the most reasonable way of preventing abortion (abstinence is only 100% effective under the condition that it’s 100% followed; Bristol Palin, the daughter of God-loving/God-fearing conservative parents should be testament to that). Those who paint pro-choice supporters or politicians as pro-abortion show their lack of understanding of the essential divide. Can they really believe that anyone wants abortions to take place? My belief is that the pro-life movement is unwilling to promote contraception and comprehensive sex education in the schools because they fear that will greatly reduce the number of abortions, and hence reduce their ability to ban it altogether.

nighthawksoars

And who’ll be taking care of the Down’s child while Gov. Palin’s out on the road? Her husband? Let’s hope his DWI isn’t the sign of bigger problems. And what about the couples who don’t have a full staff to look after the child? Not many choices from them, huh? There’s where we begin to see the right wing mentality of rigid ideology and rules (for others to conform to)in action.

Tom

RE: Tony Gillottes’ comment Quote:Forget about the husband, he seems to be like those black males who impregnate and then disappear.I’m confused, are we talking about Palin’s husband or Obama’s father?Seems like the most important think in your mind is wheter it’s a (D) or (R) following the name.

NancieLea

Having been a welfare caseworker for many years, I have seen the devastation wrecked on unwed mothers. Their life script is written early on. The fathers, many of them young as well, beat a path out of town and are never heard from again. Support enforcement then has to track them down to get support for the child, often without results. If we are to support the needs of these children having children, we need to support the programs that provide them with basic needs: welfare. Unfortunately, the conservatives rarely support welfare programs; instead, they turn to scathing diatribes directed toward women on welfare, spouting unfound statistics that they know nothing about.

k-dub

Trig was born well after Palin was elected governor and there is the 7 year old daughter at home as well. Not every mayor has a 9 to 5 job, so maybe Mr. Mom wasn’t needed before politics made it so. Anyway, I thought this thread was about choice, not having to do what other parents have to do. Obviously the Palins can afford to live on one income + snowmobile winnings. I wish I could add snowmobile winnings to my one income, but my husband is disabled and we live in NYC where snowmobiling is discouraged due in part to a lack of snow. Different circumstances in different families — how novel that we aren’t all alike.

Rebecca

Greg:DS is a curse? DS was only a curse for your brother because of ignorant, stupid and cruel people who treated him badly. Every one has something about them that makes them different. As a matter of fact, I was made fun of just as much as a kid for my buck teeth as my sister was for her DS (and I took it harder then and am more upset about it now than my sister ever has been about being made fun of herself).How can you be sure that you will be able to protect a child/person you love from ever being made fun of? And what about all the other types and forms of discrimination? Should we abort all African American children because of racism? Should we abort all poor children because of classism? Your argument in terribly, terribly flawed. Instead of promoting eugenics, how about promoting acceptance, equality and diversity!

Clio1

Mr. Shriver,After reading some of these posts, though, I wonder. I wonder if we can find common ground. I wonder if we will ever let our leaders offer real compromises to their opponents anymore. I am truly disappointed and saddened. Is there anyone capable of responding in the spirit of the original post?

Father Of A Child With Down Syndrome

Dear Mr. Shriver,I have admired your work on behalf of those persons suffering from disability, particularly some form of cognitive disabilities. Most recently I was very moved by your efforts to point out the spectacle of the movie “Tropic Thunder” in its abusive attitude toward those who suffer cognitive disabilities Even longer have I admired the work of your wonderful parents, Eunice Kennedy Shriver and Sargent Shriver, on behalf of the disable. They have been for me models of political action informed by a deep and abiding Catholic faith that is pro-life in the best sense of the term. By responding to your column above, I do not want to suggest that I have any doubt as to the depth of your own Catholic faith and commitment to life and persons with disabilities.Still, while there are points you make that I think are good and important, I am disappointed that you also choose to employ the rhetorical tools often employed by the pro-choice movement to blunt the force of the pro-life cause. And I write the following as one who still considers himself a Democrat, and who votes for Democrats whenever I can, but finds it very difficult to vote for those Democrats who either adamantly support the legitimacy of abortion, or those who do it as a matter of base political calculation.First, you repeat the worn claim that pro-life Republicans are in a way opposed to efforts to support life after birth; or at least that they don’t really care about it. “[C]ouldn’t Republicans make good on the pro-life rhetoric through a serious effort to support the needs of vulnerable children once they’re alive – by supporting child care, parent support, and community building.” They are not making good on their pro-life rhetoric? But surely you ought to recognize that well meaning and good willed Republicans have a basic philosophical difference with Democrats on the role of government in meeting the social needs of citizens–mediating social institutions rather than government as such. That has nothing to do with being pro-life, or a failure to make good on pro-life rhetoric, but, rather, a basic difference of political philosophy.And surely as a Catholic you must see the irony of suggesting that the pro-life movement is not committed to the “serious effort to support the needs of vulnerable children once they’re alive.” Certainly you would recognize that the most vocal institutional force in contemporary politics pushing pro-life political initiatives is the Roman Catholic Church in the United States, as it teaches that all human life must be protected in positive law as a matter of natural law. And yet I believe it is still the case that the Roman Catholic Church is the second largest provider of social services in the United States after the federal government. The suggestion that pro-life individuals who have chosen to support the Republican party because of its pro-life stance do not care about children after they are born is a canard cooked up by the pro-choice movement, and hardly an expression of the middle ground you call for.In the second place, you suggest that the legal question of the status of abortion must be understood in terms of coercion if the pro-life movement were to be successful in its legal efforts. And who wants to be known as coercing women? But surely you must recognize that the character of law does not only or always coerce. It also teaches. If through some Supreme Court decision the income tax were declared unconstitutional, perhaps there might remain some citizens, maybe 10%, who continued to give the government a certain proportion of their income in order that it may promote the common good. And perhaps 90% who would not. But we do have a legal income tax. Do you think you are coerced by that law to pay your taxes? Or is it just possible that you and many others recognize as a result of that law your responsibility to contribute to the common good through your income, and so you do it voluntarily? Are you really prepared to say that paying your taxes is a matter of coercion, done involuntarily, because there is a law that says you must? You who would like the government to provide more social services to children after their birth? Indeed, this is at the heart of the philosophical difference between Republicans and Democrats, with the Democratic party of my forebears arguing that the law should be structured in such a way that government takes a significant role in providing social services that promote the common good. Are we to understand that you think the Democratic party intends that legal structure to be a matter of coercing citizens, because law involves coercion? I would have thought the Democratic approach would be to see that legal structure as a means for instructing the citizenry about its responsibilities of social justice, and not a matter of coercing the citizenry.Finally, the irony of your column comes out in your citing the tragic fact that 90% of children diagnosed with Down Syndrome are aborted. You call for a middle ground with Barack Obama’s sentiments and rhetoric about reducing the number of abortions in this country. And yet, one of the cases of allowing a child born alive to die in the Illinois hospital that set off the debate about the Born Alive Act was a child born with Down Syndrome. “One night, a nursing co-worker was taking an aborted Down’s Syndrome baby who was born alive to our soiled utility room because his parents did not want to hold him and she did not have the time to hold him. I could not bear the thought of this suffering child dying alone in the soiled utility room, so I cradled and rocked him for the 45 minutes that he lived. He was between 21 and 22 weeks old, weighed about a half a pound, and was about ten inches long. He was too weak to move very much, expending any energy he had trying to breathe. Toward the end, he was so quiet, I couldn’t tell if he was still alive unless I held him up against the light to see if I could see his heart beating through his chest wall. After he was pronounced dead, we folded his little arms across his chest, wrapped him in a tiny shroud, and carried him to the hospital morgue where we take all of our other dead patients.” (Testimony of Jill Stanek, Congressional Record, But Barack Obama’s middle ground on that act as it appeared before the Illinois Senate was a concern that the mother’s and the abortionist’s original choice to abort that child should not burdened by providing it with additional medical care. “[E]ssentially, adding a — an additional doctor who then has to be called in an emergency situation to come in and make these assessments is really designed simply to burden the original decision of the woman and the physician to induce labor and perform an abortion.” (Transcript of State of Illinois 92nd General Assembly Regular Session Transcript, April 4, 2002 You will perhaps see the irony of citing candidate Obama’s urge to find “middle ground” in your reflection upon the aborting of children with Down Syndrome, and perhaps also forgive both pro-life Democrats like myself and pro-life Republicans for not seeing much hope of his “making good on his [middle ground] rhetoric.”

Secular

I don’t understand what is the big deal about a so called pro-lifer carrying the pregnancy to its natural conclusion. The question to really ask, what kind of Parents are these Palins, who could not control their passions nor were they smart enough to take necessary precautions not to conceive a child when she is over forty. Did the news that a women over forty runs the risk of having a Down Syndrome child not reach the 21st century Alaska. In my book these abstinence only crowd cannot stop spreading the legs nor can they keep the zipper up when not peeing. Why is this woman being lionized, like this by the so called values and the abstinence only crowd. has anyone wondered what kind of example these to parents have set for their daughter Bristol. She probably, thought when my Maw and Paw are going at it like rabbits why shouldn’t me too. This whole thing is sick.

Cat

Focus and Tom, thank you for your wonderful posts.Jane Doe, interesting to see you equate Down Syndrome with trailer parks. Mark Edward, if you want to discover some very interesting facts, research Charles de Gaulle’s right-wing attitudes (in particular his anti-Semitism). He should have been Hitler’s dream date and had de Gaulle’s extraordinary eloquence (greater even than Barack Obama’s, je vous assure!) been brought to bear for the Axis rather than for the Allies and la France libre, WWII might have had a very different outcome. One person stood between de Gaulle and his assimilation by the Vichy government: Anne de Gaulle. One thing engendered de Gaulle’s revolt against Hitler: the slaughter of the innocents those whose “lives were unworthy of life”.In French we say “parfois on a besoin d’un plus petit que soi” – someone who appears insignificant to some people (like yourself) but whose value cannot be judged easily – rather like people with Down Syndrome.

Ian

Here’s a woman who was in her mid-40s–an age when the risk of pregnancy increases for mother and child. She already had four healthy kids, so there’s no biological clock issue. Oh yeah–and she was recently elected as governor of her state. Can someone pls. explain why this woman decides to get pregnant in the first place? What is she thinking? Or was it an accident? Between the people of Alaska and her newborn, someone gets short-changed.And one more thing–is she done now, or might she decide to have a few more kids as leader of the free world.

MrsGrapevine

Why make it sound honorable that she chose to have Trig, I don’t understand why you would abort a child just because the have down syndrome, anyway. Down syndrome doesn’t make a child severely dysfunctional with no chance of quality of life. You don’t abort a child because of down syndrome, that’s like aborting a child because they don’t have brown eyes. Go ahead and end abortions, I bet you will be surprised to learn that it’s not just a liberal thing. A large number of “social-conservatives” have abortions, private abortions that don’t go toward statistics…We see more kids taking trips abroad and going off to “summer camp”.

sparrow

Father Of A Child With Down Syndrome:the real irony of yur argument is that you place an onus on Senator Obama that is unfair and unwarranted. The real onus belongs on all of us because we are so confused as to when and where we are our brother’s keeper. At the heart of pro-lifer’s positions is the belief that life begins at conception. Well, let me amend that. At the heart of their argument is the assumption that a child is born at the moment of conception. For whatever reason they wholeheartedly believe that, and that is their personal belief. There are those of us whole don’t believe this is the case. Whether by virtue of biology or religion, I don’t believe an embryo is a human being. It is the potential to become one, yes. But until it reaches a certain point in its physical development, it is a mass of expanding, rapidly differentiating cells. Being pro-choice is not imposing my belief system on you. I don’t require that you agree with my position, nor do I expect you to live with my decision. On the other hand, Pro-lifers demand exactly that. that I believe as they do and that I be required to live with the consequences of their beliefs. You wrote:First, you repeat the worn claim that pro-life Republicans are in a way opposed to efforts to support life after birth; or at least that they don’t really care about it. “[C]ouldn’t Republicans make good on the pro-life rhetoric through a serious effort to support the needs of vulnerable children once they’re alive – by supporting child care, parent support, and community building.” They are not making good on their pro-life rhetoric? But surely you ought to recognize that well meaning and good willed Republicans have a basic philosophical difference with Democrats on the role of government in meeting the social needs of citizens–mediating social institutions rather than government as such. That has nothing to do with being pro-life, or a failure to make good on pro-life rhetoric, but, rather, a basic difference of political philosophy.” You can’t have it both ways. If you want the government to be able to dictate whether or not a woman must have a baby, it’s specious for you to then claim their political philosophy excuses them from the consequences of that policy.They can either make the government take responsibility for babies they forced to come to term or they can be hypocrites.Coercion by definition is:We obey the law but as anyone who has protested government policies by withholding taxes can tell you, if you don’t, you will be coerced into doing so. Your argument is not a solid one. No one likes to pay taxes, but yes we do recognize the greater good for all. Coercing a woman into having a child she doesn’t want, whether by law or not, is not to the common good. It is purely and simply an act of coercion. And in fact, not that much different than rape, where the will of the more powerful is imposed on the less. We all agree that murder is the crime of unlawfully killing a person especially with malice aforethought. What we do not agree on is when does a mass of cells become a person and my belief is rooted in biology and my religion. Not yours.But I don’t expect you to get an abortion either.

MrsGrapevine

I want every pro-life person to go to an orphanage if they are fit parents, and adopt a child…You believe in life so much, put your house where your heart is…Oh but wait, it’s not your responsibility, it’s not your problem, you just want an opinion about it, but don’t want to help support that opinion…

Anonymous

Most pro-choice people that I know do support services and support for women who choose to carry their pregnancy to term. Planned parenthood in my area offers pre-natal care for low income women and adoption referal if that’s your choice. Other women centers offer conseling and parenting skills traing. That’s what prochoice means, supporting a womans choice whatever it maybe.

Madeleine

Sarah Palin had no choice. Her religious conviction does not give her choice. She did not choose life. Her daughter is not choosing to have a child either. The Republican Party that is honoring Bristols’ “choice’ for life is being hypocritical. If Bristol was a poor black girl, the daughter of a single mom, who became pregnant and “chose” life, there would be only scorn and criticism of her lack of self control to abstain from sex before marriage. Her pro life choice would leave her no alternative than to live in near poverty struggling on welfare work programs or to put her child up for adoption. Her dreams of higher education, not likely to happen. There is isn’t a big call to adopt black babies, so the baby would be institutionalized for his entire childhood. No, this young woman Bristol should have had a choice, just as all the teenage girls out there should have a choice. It is not glamorous having a baby as an unwed teen for most of humanity, yet it is becoming an epidemic in our country. Most girls get pregnant as teens do not have the resources afforded to them as this child of a Governor. Their parents must give up a good portion of their own lives in time and money to help their child’s pro life decision. Right now, teens do have the choice to have an abortion. A tragic choice in a what should be perceived as a tragic situation. It is only the rich and famous who make that pro life decision wonderous and beautiful enough for a magazine cover. And the Republican Party is not helping the situation by lauding Ms. Bristol for her “choice’ when there was no choice and encouraging this kind of negligence as being okay, when the reality for most teens is great hardship for both them and their families. The right of choice must be protected. Unless you are going to love, feed, cloth and educate that baby yourself do not presume to make the choice for other children and their families.

Jason

There is no middle ground with this issue. that is the problem with all you individuials that think there is some grey shaded area that there are exceptions to be had. Abortion is first degree murder of an inoccent life in which God created. Those of you who wish and choose to abort are making lifeless decisions in which will weigh on the mothers shoulders for eternal life will suffer. God will punish those who choose to make the decision to abort and those who assist in process. It is not our job as God’s children to determine if you are a bad person for aborting a helpless child the is the work of the Father. We will pray for you. But it is the work of the Devil and the doings of pagan hatred people who have no love for life or human beings who would do this to childern. You people are sick and morbid and shall rot in the deepest darkest firery place imagianable. You have sided with Islamist facist muslims

Matteucs

Secular: What an arrogant, obnoxious comment..MANY MANY men and women have children over 40. Yes, there is a higher chance of having a DS child, but MOST are perfectly healthy.They wanted to bring another child into this world, a child they will love and take care of, and why they did is NO business of yours.They were married, they have had children, and to say that they somehow did something wrong by having sex as married, consenting adults is just PATHETIC on your part

Pro-Life Adoptive Parent

Dear MRSGRAPEVINE:Just wanted to let you know that I have fulfilled your request below (to adopt a child) and am open to doing so again. Please let me know of any leads you might have. May I now express an opinion?Signed,Pro-Life Adoptive Parent

Focus on Abilities

Jason et al:Whenever people start wearing bibles on their sleeves and tell others what they should or shouldn’t do, I keep coming back to one of my favorite phrases from that book…”do not judge others ‘lest ye be judged”. These are hard decisions that require others to be compassionate.

Don Detrich

It’s certainly the right of the Palins to make a choice that 90% of other couple do not make. The problem is that the anti-abortion views that Palin supports would take away that choice from everyone else by outlawing abortion, even in the case of rape or incest, and apparently congenital retardation and deformity.

jason

as you can see i said i will not judge but let the lord do that. I was just providing facts of weear these people will end up.

Garak

Pro Trig? NEVER! Algebra rules!

Ellen

Thank you Greg, for your story.I agree that it is all too easy for “pro-life” people to create a picture of innocent baby cells living inside a mother who will live a perfect life when they are saved from abortion.And they demonize any woman who has an abortion regardless of the circumstances.I have a friend whose sister was pregnant. She and her husband were thrilled. When she went in for a regular checkup, she was told that the fetus inside her was dead. She had miscarried, but the dead fetus was still inside her. She was told that the insurance would not pay to remove it b/c it was considered an abortion, even though it was not alive. She had the option of waiting several weeks (the time they said it might take) for the body to expel this…..and during which time she would have to walk around with this dead fetus inside her….or she could pay out of pocket for the abortion. The emotional trauma of losing a child she had wanted was bad enough. But to be forced by anti-abortion beliefs to carry her dead fetus inside her for three weeks added to it……it’s a short sighted, ignorant position that people have that allows no room for medical situations like this or compassion for the mother.I’d also like to ask people how they would feel if their 11 year old daughter or granddaughter was raped and impregnated (children are even getting their periods now as young as 4 and 5…Time magazine did a cover story on this)….would they have her carry the child to term? would she breast feed? raise the child as her own? How would people feel if they saw a pregnant 11 year old in their community? Would they turn away? Would they stare? Would they be judgmental of her? Of her parents? Would they be supportive of her emotionally for the rest of her life, which she would likely need? Would they be willing to pay higher taxes so she could get medical care during and after her pregnancy? Would they help her raise the child?

Anonymous

jason, that is judging. If you really are leaving it to the Lord, I suggest you do so. They say the road to Hell is paved with good intentions. Especially by religious fundamentalists.

First time Mum

As a first time mother of a child with DS – NOT a DS child you see, that is offensive to say. They are children first and foremost, they have a condition, the condition does *not* define who they are. In most cases they will do everything ‘regular’ children do, it might just take them a little longer to get there.

Anonymous

Ellen- surely you jest. The mantra of the Republican Party is no taxes, and smaller, leaner government. Of course I could take that more seriously if government hadn’t become so dangerously bloated under the bush administration. Nonetheless, the Republican Party, it seems has a political philosophical aversion to the kinds of assistance programs people need. Unless your name is Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

Marc Edward

Jason writes “There is no middle ground with this issue.”Actually there is a whole lot of middle ground. It’s the absolutists who will make no compromise, and in holding to your extreme position the numbers of abortions will remain around a million/year. Instead of making a compromise that might save hundreds of thousands of “lives” you prefer to remain pure and condemn the millions. Your daintiness doesn’t come cheap, but it’s others who pay the price.”that is the problem with all you individuials that think there is some grey shaded area that there are exceptions to be had. Abortion is first degree murder of an inoccent life in which God created.”No, it’s not 1st degree murder in anyway what so ever. Cat writes “Mark Edward” (actually it’s Marc, not Mark – my dad was French/Canadian) That’s doubtful. The Russians bore most of the brunt of the fight against Hitler. The French Resistance was certainly useful, but they were not what turned the tide. You might want to read Winston Churchill’s books.”One person stood between de Gaulle and his assimilation by the Vichy government: Anne de Gaulle. One thing engendered de Gaulle’s revolt against Hitler: the slaughter of the innocents those whose “lives were unworthy of life”.”That seems really unlikely. A patriot like deGaulle would have abondoned his nation for the sake of his daughter? I think somebody sold you a story, but I’ll do my best to look into it.Father of child with Downs Syndrom – please stop pretending the Republicans are pro life. They pretend to be pro-life real good, they call abortion murder, they call legal abortion a “holocaust”. However they do nothing about it (and it’s been near 40 years!), hence they are not pro-life. In the 2004 campaign they championed amending the constitution to prevent gay marriage (didn’t do that either) but where was an amendment defining life beginning at conception? When President Bush wanted to take the country to war he was on television frequently, as well as other folks from the White House, braying about the danger of “a nuclear armed Iraq”. Bush led the country to war, but where’s his leadership on ending abortion? Why isn’t he speaking every day about this? Or every week? Or every month? He doesn’t care, and neither does the Republican leadership, and neither does the pro-life leadership. They want the votes and money from pro-life folks, and they enjoy having to do NOTHING in return. They think you all are suckers, and so far you’ve proved them right.Good luck!

Anonymous

first time mum “If you knew your child would develop a condition later in life or have the wrong colour hair, eyes the list goes on.”The sad truth is that that is what’s happening now and the issue isn’t because we have choice, but because as a society we have become so shallow and fixated on looks. On plastic perfection. Pro-choice was never about this.I’ve met many people with ds- they are a joy. But for many parents who do decide to abort, the decision is not taken lightly, but with sadness and grief. for all the people who rebutted Greg’s powerful story, it still should be remembered it is as legitimate a story as yours. Until we can come to an understanding that what works for you may not work for me, there will always be this fight for domination. I don’t think this is what the Founding fathers, as religious as they may have been, wanted. In fact domination by any one religion was exactly what they feared and so wrote freedom of religion into the constitution.Freedom of religion isn’t about being able to impose your beliefs on anyone else- it’s about preventing that so that all of us have the right to practice our religions freely.

Athena

It’s lovely that Sarah Palin can have a child with DS and be back to work in three days. Does this mean that she believes that ALL women who have babies should go back to work in 3 days? Women I know that have desk jobs were out for 6 weeks for a normal delivery, and went back part-time after that. What about child care? We see that Gov. Palin has a bassinet in her office. Should other women be allowed to take their babies to the office? What about women who do not have that option? Also, her behavior when her water broke while she was in Texas is very suspect. First of all, she knew that she was having a DS child, which apparently causes some kind of complications in the mother. Her water broke in Texas. Instead of going directly to the nearest hospital – preferably one with a neo-natal unit – she got on a plane back to Alaska. She did NOT inform the airline or the flight attendants that her water had broken. If she had, she would not have been allowed to fly. She was in the air for several hours, probably in the early stages of labor. When she arrived back in Anchorage, she did NOT go to the neo-natal facility in Anchorage, but went to a normal hospital in Wausilla to have Trig. Now, for those of you who have pregnancies with complications – with or without DS – does this sound like she’s concerned about this child?

sparrow

anonymous, 6:02- you re wrong. there was a very famous case over 40 years ago of a 5 or 6 year old girl (not totally positive of her exact age but she was definitely younger than 9)giving birth to a son. She was raped by a family member. for some reason my mother saved the newspaper article. And a few years ago they did an update on her and her son whom she has refused all these years to have anything to do with.

curota

People that choose to have a child with dow syndrome and have enough money to have others take care of is not merit to me.

ROSIE

It’s absurdly naive to allow a teenager to advance into womanhood without some information of their reproductive system and what young boys get up to. Perhaps Mother Palin should have been instructing her children on the birds and the bees rather than the Washington lobbyists. Her parenting skills are sadly lacking – and she’s going to give us the best of her advice ???

Athena

“And on the abortion front, let’s remember that Barack Obama is the product of an unwed teenage white mother and a black man who wasn’t going to be in the picture. If abortion were legal 47 years ago the 2008 nominee might be someone very different.”Actually, Barack Obama’s mother was married to his father at age 18. His father left two years later. So your argument holds no water.

pediatrician

Anonymous wrote: “The earliest age a girl can her Menstruation is at age nine, the ovaries have not matured at that age… Ovulation must occur before a girl begins Menstruation”This is utter nonsense. The ovaries must be mature enough to make female hormones, but is normal for initial periods to be without ovulation. The age of puberty has advanced by 4 months each decade for the past two hundred or so years. The kind of family values sex-ed that was called for when girls got their periods at 16 or 17 and married shortly thereafter is in a different universe from that in which girls get their periods at 10 or 11 and postpone marriage until after college. We need to help our girls sort this out, not deny them knowledge.I wish women didn’t feel they had to choose between life in a fast-paced “children as commodities” world and their pregnancies, Down Syndrome or not.

Alph Williams

The real issue is what does religion have to do with government in a system that clearly separates church and state? America was founded by religious zealots who could not abide the relgious beliefs of others…but it was united by a divesity and tolerance of religions as insured by our consitution when America became the United States. The superstitious and naive have been exploited time after time to do the dirty work of the cynical and the greedy. It is time to return to the wisdom of our foundng fathers.

Marc Edward

Anonymous writes Yeah, it’s possible, if instead of an abortion the mother had gone to a hospital and they were planning on trying save said 22 week olds. It would cost millions, and nobody’s going to pay for it. There is no way that a clinic that performs abortions could have the facilities available “just in case” an abortion fails.Athena writes

IH2008

I’m not sure how every Republican and Pro-lifer has missed it but for 35 years the pro-choice movement has been working to give women a “Choice.” Just like the one Sarah Palin made. Encouraging parents to support their pregnant teens, encouraging schools to allow pregnant teens and young mothers the opportunity to stay in high school and college to complete their education. Special education in public schools for children like Trig. The Head Start program for low income families, the WIC program for new mothers. The Democrats have been on this path for 35 years. If the Pro-lifers would like to step up and start supporting mothers who “choose” to carry their pregnancy to term regardless of the conditions of the pregnancy, by all means let’s get together and keep working!

digby

Madeleine,You’ll have to explain to me more clearly, from your alternate reality, when it is the case for someone to choose life.I chose not to have prenatal testing because, for me, it’s always going to be life. I have a four year old with Down Syndrome. His life is equal in value to yours.Maybe you could post us a checklist of when it’s OK to have a baby and who’s allowed to have them, seeing as you like to dole out the restrictions as a proponant of “choice”.And no Madeleine, there are no institutions filled with black children, they do get adopted. How come pro-choicers are always directing people to orphanages? Go and try to adopt an American baby, there aren’t any, hence the influx of babies from around the world. There is also a waiting list of qualified families waiting to adopt children with Down Syndrome as well.

Vinny

Has anyone thought what the child who was born knowing that he would be disabled or deformed for life would have wanted? Would the child have really wanted to live a life of permanent disability and dependence on someone? The question then is, how many of us would decide to live if we are given a choice between a permanently disabled life dependent on others for everything or a painless death. I think the mother has a responsibility to think of that aspect of the life of the child she is bringing to this world before she makes a decision and tout that it is god’s gift because in the end it is not her who is going to suffer for the next 50 to 90 years but this child she is bringing to this earth. That is the real moral dilemna not whether it is god’s gift or whether we as individuals have a right to decide to have an abortion or not.

Mr. Challenger

It’s unconditional love and people have a difficult time deal with that because they don’t understand it. A man gave his whole heart to a woman and lost all. The children come first, so if you can find a place in her heart it should be a special place. It can’t be all or none or it ends up being none. Love is made to be shared, not all consuming. It is not fire it is water. You can’t live without water. Fire must be controlled, water can flow all over the place and it does. Love needs no rules and follows no rules, which scares some people. You can’t break the rules, all you can do is love her or him and support each other. That is emotional security and progress which is meaningful can’t be stopped when a family has that. It’s a good thing.

allen antrim

Wow, you didn’t get near as many comments as that Quinn dame. Abortion should be available to the parents up to about 35 years. When you abort a baby you can’t be sure what your throwing in the waste basket. At about 35, you pretty much know if your child is a loser or not. I heard a lady who deals with autism say that without these people we would still be living in caves (they are evidently very creative). I imagine a lot of people would abort these kids if tested in the womb, as they would be a “burden on society”. Now we abort the unknown and keep all the losers. Well I have to leave now and devote my attention and concern to the giant hurricanes somewhere in the world.

pediatrician

Marc EDward said: “It would cost millions, and nobody’s going to pay for it. There is no way that a clinic that performs abortions could have the facilities available “just in case” an abortion fails.”In most hospitals a 22 wk delivery, if born alive, would receive “comfort care”. Warming blankets, a chance to be held by family, etc. It is cruel to flog a baby with painful futile care in the name of “saving’ it. There may come a time when such babies can be saved, but for my own child I would consider it torture.But Marc, you are wrong that no one will pay for it – you are already paying for it – in both your insurance premiums and in your tax dollars.But then, this was straw man topic anyway, wasn’t it?

Mr. Challenger

Sally is a challenge, as you can see by all the posts. If you don’t challenge the reader, you better not be a writer. She could of been a judge if this didn’t turn out to be what was important to her. Now they are calling her evil. Everthing I have ever done in life that was worth a damn thing I caught hell for, so what the hell. They don’t matter, they just don’t know it. Hells bells.

patriot

Conservative values are in the eye of the beholder. Teen pregnancy is a sign of an immoral liberal Hollywood permissive parenting culture in Conservo-world, except when the daughter of a Conservative makes a “mistake’. Homosexuality is an abomination which should deny one the basic human rights of marriage and parenting in Conserveo-world, except when its your child being called an abomination and your grandbaby born to your gay daughter whose life you are celebrating.It would appear that labelling oneself “Conservative” means believing that “failure to uphold the perfect moral code is a sign of the decay of the permissive liberal influence of society, except for the hot-button issues affecting my family which of course are the exception to the rule”

Anthony Andreassi

Would we say the same thing about a governor in whose state captial punishment is legal? Let it stay legal, but let us hope that she choose life and does not inflict death on someone else? I don’t think so

Digby

Rosie,Do you really think that at 17 Sarah Palin’s daughter didn’t know about sex? How do you think Palin explained Trig’s birth then? Was it a midnight visit from the stork?And did you think that the Washington Lobbyists needed a few lessons on sex ed too?

Chip Gower

Please, put the posts in descending chronological order, first post at the top. That’s how people read, top to bottom.

sparrow

RN: You have the ability with the opposable thumbs we’ve evolved to use your keyboard to look it up. The paper that reported the story years ago and the paper that did the update were well regarded newspapers not National enquirer or Star. I don’t read them, thank you very much. And while not a medical practitioner I have studied biology and worked in a hospital as a nurse aide. Nor do I quote stories from newspapers that have headlines screaming Hillary give birth to an alien baby. “Isolated incidences are not the norm and should not be portray as such. Layman’s lack of knowledge regarding the medical processes of their body is convoluted enough without people staring rumors of non-validated factual medical occurrences. So please check your facts. I am well equipped to speak on the matter of medical science regarding the body’s reproductive process.I am not criticizing you in my years as a medical practitioner I have seen many people harmed by false beliefs regarding medical science and how their body processes occur medically. I don’t want to cause any more confusion and know that you don’t either.”Indeed I don’t, but why should you assume I have no knowledge of the human body because I posted information about a news story? Nor do I even attempt to say this is the norm. I posted the information to show that the human body is a remarkable organism and never say never. But the story is indeed true.Bear something else in mind, please- many of us have been directly affected by the abortion issue. You aren’t the only one hurting.

Todd

I don’t get how people aren’t questioning the ugliest Red Elephant in the room. If the story of Trig’s birth is true (she delivers a speech and takes an 8+ hour flight AFTER her water broke) then SHE TRIED TO KILL HER DOWNS SYNDROME BABY without risking her right-wing pro-life political career by having an abortion.She knew the baby had Downs (90% of mothers abort upon hearing this), she knew she couldn’t have an abortion so she does everything she can to terminate this baby and keep her hands clean. I think this speaks greater volumes about her pattern of hypocrisy.This was her 5th child (we know of) and she was giving birth at 44 years old. Don’t tell me she didn’t know what she was doing or the blatant mortal jeopardy she was risking on her unborn child. If (and its still a big if) Trig is her child, she hopped on that flight hoping by the time she got back to Alaska, that sweet downs baby would fall out of her lifeless, having suffocated in her womb absent of the amniotic fluid it needed to breathe.Honestly, how many mothers reading this would have taken the same chance with their own child as Sarah Palin did with Trig Palin?Either way, her career is the only thing that’s about to be aborted. And just think, were only a few days into knowing this crazy bizatch.

David Habecker

Trig Palin is the result of many choices that Sarah Palin made. She chose to have sex. She chose not to use birth control, which could only be abstinance; (which raises the question of how she only has 5 kids in 20 years of marriage to a reported man’s man.) She chose to expose herself to the possibility of having a fifth child while serving as Governor, which means the State or the child is going to be short changed. And now she chooses to abandon her childs rearing to others while she pursues her political ambitions, -or will she choose to shortchange her country if elected?

Paxroma

I’m hearing on the news that the poor child with Downs Syndrome is actually Sarah Palin’s daughters child. And that the child she’s carrying now will be her second child. Everyone’s talking about this.

Anonymous

Anonymous writes Yeah, it’s possible, if instead of an abortion the mother had gone to a hospital and they were planning on trying save said 22 week olds. It would cost millions, and nobody’s going to pay for it. There is no way that a clinic that performs abortions could have the facilities available “just in case” an abortion fails.Marc Edward You are a classic HYPOCRITE with no soul. You advocate the killing of millions of dead babies- but “please don’t show me a picture of them”. (BTW the utube are of twins born at 22 weeks who are now 18 months and doing fine- as if you care)What do you think your friendy neighborhood abortionist looks at, handles and throws into the trash every day?? dead babies..dead babies..dead babies….

Anonymous

“You advocate the killing of millions of dead babies”May I point out, you can’t kill something that’s already dead?

Anonymous

“You advocate the killing of millions of dead babies”May I point out once they are killed, aborted, vacuumed out, dismembered- they are dead babies..Who killed the dead babies- who has all that blood on their hands?

Marc Edward

Anonymous writesWell, as I’m not sure a “soul” exists, you might have a point. “You advocate the killing of millions of dead babies- but “please don’t show me a picture of them”.”In truth I don’t advocate anyone killing any babies. I don’t tell people to get abortions or kill babies. By your logic, anyone who supported the invasion of Iraq “advocated the killing of babies” because of course thousands of babies have died through our actions.”(BTW the utube are of twins born at 22 weeks who are now 18 months and doing fine- as if you care)”Glad they “are doing fine” – although I can only care so much about people I know in the abstract.”What do you think your friendy neighborhood abortionist looks at, handles and throws into the trash every day?? dead babies..dead babies..dead babies….”You seem to be arguing that the real evil of abortion is that it isn’t pleasing to the eye. Not sure if that argument holds water, but feel free to make it.

Anonymous

“I’m hearing on the news that the poor child with Downs Syndrome is actually Sarah Palin’s daughters child. And that the child she’s carrying now will be her second child. Everyone’s talking about this.”Too bad you don’t have to prove you’re mentally stable before you can vote.

Jennifer Sypal

Please stop the slanderous posts about Trig Palin being Sarah’s grandson. It’s not true. She carried him to term in April. There are pictures of her pregnant. Her 17 year old daughter Bristol is currently 5 months pregnant and is keeping her baby.Stop this madness!!!! My gosh, you liberals will stop at nothing to destroy a candidate you don’t like.

Marc Edward

Paxroma writes daily kos were the ones who broke that story over the weekend. Do a google search like “daily kos sarah palin baby” and you ought to get a link.As for the truth of the rumors, who knows? Go by daily kos and judge for yourself.Digby – clearly the mother had not taught her daughter about sex and birth control. I had several girlfriends from when I was 15 till I married at age 28, and didn’t get any of them pregnant. Your seem to claim that all children get adopted, which hardly explains the large numbers of kids in foster care. Our society has not found a way to take up unwanted children. Some “culture of life”!

CA Dreamin

I was so upset I couldn’t even read any other posts so this may be a repeat. Palin did NOT “choose” to have the baby. According to her beliefs there is no choice. YOu have the kid regardless. Rape, incest, you’re 17 and mom won’t put you on the pill. So someone tell me how a down baby born to this woman was a “choice?”

Rebecca

Madeleine:She had no choice because of her religion!?! Read the 1st amendment.

CA Dreamin

Well, her religion says you MUST. So why is everyone saying she “chose” to have the kid?

CA dreamin/

You and no one else has a right to tell me what I can or can’t do with my body. Period. If your religion tells you you MUST NOT have a choice, fine. That’s what YOU live with. But don’t preach to me.

Just me

Is it just a coincidence that her daughter Bristol was out of school for 5 months with mono? hmmmm…I’m just saying. Research it yourself.

Anonymous

7:48- 7:41 here. If you want to reach people with the flawless logic of your ideas, you should put your ideas together more carefully.

Buddydog

Palin is a hypocrite! Her statement: “We’re proud of Bristol’s decision to have her baby and even prouder to become grandparents.” ‘Decision’ to have her baby? Did Bristol REALLY have a choice? The same choice that Palin now wants to deny all Americans? Palin would not be a hypocrite if she said “We forced Bristol keep her baby and are proud to become grandparents.”

Just Me

Don’t toss your man made bible verses at me. If you choose to live by those words good for you. It’s your life but DON’T tell me I have to. Why don’t you get that?

Anonymous

How could Sarah Palin’s daughter be five months pregnant after delivering a four and half month old baby? The rumor is obviously false. Sarah Palin should be the baby’s mom.

Jeffrey

As a parent with a child with Down Syndrome I am disgusted by your headline writer’s choice of word order. Trig is a child FIRST; he is NOT a “Down Child”!Be responsible. Recognize an individual’s humanity first and foremost.

pgr88

It took WaPo 10 months, and a break from the NATIONAL ENQUIRER to break the John Edwards story about his love-child.On the other hand, it took 12 hours and a quick prompt from the DNC for WaPo to start trashing Sarah Palin and her family.Does anyone trust anything printed in the Post?

Just Me

If Bristol is 17 and her boyfriend Levi is 18 isn’t that statutory rape?

Anonymous

Just Me-Just get over it.”The boyfriend of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin’s unwed, pregnant daughter will join the family of the Republican vice presidential candidate at the GOP convention in St. Paul, Minn. Levi Johnston’s mother said her 18-year-old son left Alaska on Tuesday morning to join the Palin family at the convention where Sen. John McCain will officially receive the Republican nomination for president. The boy’s mother, Sherry Johnston, said there had been no pressure put on her son to marry 17-year-old Bristol Palin and the two teens had made plans to wed before it was known she was pregnant.”This is just a bonus,” Johnston said.”

Anonymous

Anonymous:

Anonymous

“No I won’t get over it.”OK- you can sit down in your cranky pants and grumble all you want but the rest of the world has moved on.

tim

Don’t they know what condoms are in Alaska? Like mother, like daughter.

Bostonian

Just Me:No.. Great State of Appalachia (aka Alaska) sex age is 15.

907guy

Alaska’s age of consent is 16, but if the parties are less than 3 years apart in age, the fact that either party is a minor is not relevant.

Billy

Like this child will not have a difficult life already she has to name it Trig. This is who we chose for a VP? Her older son is Track. This fact alone proves she is insane, you don’t have to look at the boatloads of evidence. It is all in the names.

Just Me

Anon:

Kary

There have been a few commenters on here who have touched on an issue near & dear to my opinion of things. The mother may have have the choice (at least at this point in the U.S. she does) but the child doesn’t; the child has no choice at all. It is difficult enough to bring up a child under more or less normal circumstances, much more so when that child faces a lifetime of hardship due to genetic problems, birth injuries, mental problems, etc. no matter how well off their family is. To think those issues don’t affect the child and their quality of life is to blatantly ignore reality. There are those among us who think that sometimes it’s simply mercy to not bear a child who would face these issues. Life isn’t always a gift, in some cases, it’s tantamount to torture, for the child, for the family, and for society. As for Ronald Reagan’s statement “I’ve noticed that everybody that is for abortion has already been born”; well, hey y’all, it wasn’t like I was given a choice. Had I had one, I might have chosen differently.

t

Nice comments, Tim. You make excellent points. There is an impasse between the two sides of the abortion debate fueled by extreme conviction and emotion. The problem with the pro-choice position, despite how rational and logical it may be made to seem in some circumstances, is that abortion has done little to reduce poverty or out of wedlock births. In that regard Obama’s conviction to “reduce unwanted pregnancies” is not realistic. Unwanted pregnancies are often driven by deep-seated emotions rather than conscious planning. Most “unwanted” pregnancies are *not* the result of ignornance. And often the women who choose to have their children would have been the most likely to financially benefit from an abortion. So, obviously “unwanted” pregnancies are about a lot more than poverty and education. They are about a woman feeling or not feeling valued, secure, and loved.To that end, the pro-life movement can gain ground by focusing on spreading the message of love and grace and self-worth to those who need it the most, and as you mentioned, giving generously to those mothers who try to overcome such a situation. Unfortunately, often that does not happen in our Churches.

lpf

Choose life? What about the lives of women who may not be able or willing to care for a child well? But wait, I forgot, women are but vessels – flower pots designed to nurture and care for the seed of life.

Anonymous

test

norman ravitch

A child brought into the world who will never be able to care for himself is to burden him, his parents, and his society with terrible dilemmas.

Marc Edward

pgr88 writes It was the MCCAIN CAMP that released the information, not the WaPo! The McCain Camp!!!!!!

Francis

I just can’t understand the schizophrenic Republican value system, where they are “pro-life”, yet support the death penalty

Darlajune

Tim,

RD

Across America, orphanages are full of babies and children of color that are not adopted and live in foster care under the State until they are of age. Their mothers, for the most part, had little to no say or ability to care for their kids or the option of an abortion that Most women DO NOT readily want to do. Keep this in mind. That is why it is called ‘Choice’ and religion in 2008 is not that of the Puritans. Or so I had believed. Guess not, huh?

Mary

I work with special needs children and find that most parents would not have changed their decision, even after they are confronted with life long responsibility.Most all these parents work full time – for health care benefits, for money needed for specail services not covered by insurances, and for a break to prevent the caregiver fatigue.It disturbs me that liberals think that she should have aborted Trig and that having a special needs child disqualifies her from being a great leader or a great mother.Clearly the deep rooted discrimination against women and families with special needs children has not porgressed much since the middle of the last century.

Spatula

Sarah Palin most likely has had an abortion already:”Spontaneous abortion is a very common experience for women. It is estimated that between 25-50% of conceptions spontaneously abort. Researchers do not have an exact figure due to the fact that when this occurs very early on, many women do not know that they were ever pregnant.”Not always a choice….

Jackie

No true Christian would support a 16 year old having sex. Sarah and Todd Palin are a disgrace to Family Values and those kids need parents who will teach them. Yes Sarah is to busy being Governor and Todd has a drinking problem but if something isn’t done the other two daughters will be next. How many times will this family have shot gun wedding to cover up for the parents not caring for their kids. The Christian Republicans are sending a message to our kids like Bristol and Jamie Lyn Spears that it’s ok to have sex at any age and get pregnant just keep the baby and forget about education. Let your daughters be dummies and let your son’s use woman for sex. This is the New Republican Christian Family Values for all Americans if McCain/Palin get in office.

DANNEM

Sarah Palin is doing nothing more remarkable than millions of people have done before her, to include my family. 33 years ago we welcomed my sister into the world. She also has Downs Syndrome and has been a joy to have in our lives. She loves music and dancing, has a great sense of humor, and is the most loving person I know. The only thing I find interesting in this story is that Sarah Palin’s evangelical teachings backfired…now her 17 year old daughter, who obviously was too cool for abstinence, will, as a young teenage mother married to a young teenage father, draw on the social services Dems support and Republicans want to cut.

Chris

It is amazing that anyone can support murder but people do. 1.3 million babies murdered each year in the US. It’s horrific and we need to wake up and realize what is happening.I can understand some basic confusion about whether an unborn baby is a life. However when we think about it and consider that unmolested that life will be a bouncing/crying/cooing baby boy or girl in 9 months…it does seem more obvious then.I fully sympathize with women who do not have good environments to raise their children in. But we cannot advocate murder in those cases. That would be like saying we should just nuke Sudan and most of India because they have poor living conditions.I believe Republicans need to change their position on the death penalty, but that is a trivial issue compared to the 1.3 million babies we kill each year.That fact that Obama supports killing babies who are alive outside the womb is even more shocking. It shows how far our value of life has plunged in this country when a politician believes that is acceptable.

C. Neiman

Only from the standpoint of someone who is pro-choice can Sarah Palin be seen to have made a choice to have Trig or any of her children. From that point of view, having Trig was admirable. But if she’s adamantly pro-life, then she cannot claim to have been brave in carrying him to term, because there never would have been any question about it. Not to take anything away from her. But keep logic in mind.I do think that her family, especially Trig, needs her more than the country does. We have other leaders who can fill the position of VP, but no one can replace her in her role as mother. She will also now have to help her daughter learn to be a mother.

Anonymous

Tim, great article as usual. I love reading your article they are full of wisdom and sound advice.A man that is not afraid to admit his beliefs along with a compassionate heart that truly cares about others without any false pretense. You don’t present yourself one way and inwardly be thinking about it another way. I admire you Tim and you character.

Liz

I enjoyed your column. It is refeshing to hear the correct view on life. I applaud you.

Tony

How can Sarah Palin call herself pro-life if she supports the death penalty?

sparrow

“Wouldn’t those who don’t believe in abortion be better served by trying to make life easier for struggling women rather than trying to fight the Supreme Court? And wouldn’t pro-choicers improve their standing by acknowledging the goodness of choosing life rather than pretending the decision carries no moral value?”Some of the most thoughtful questions ever asked. And no doubt you’re right on all these counts except that Trig will never be a symbol of unity between pro- and anti-choice people. There’s a fundamental difference between these groups and it’s not only about choice.Choice acknowledges the right of another person to make decisions regarding their life and their own body. Pro-lifers impose their personal views and beliefs on others. This certainly goes against the principle of freedom of religion. Many of us don’t believe life begins at conception or that the soul infuses the egg. We don’t think contraception and birth control are murder. These are religious beliefs- not biology. Imposing your beliefs on a woman’s right to decide about her own body is also an invasion of privacy. We like to think we are being protective of our constitutional rights- indeed they are often referred to as G-d-given rights- but we have yet to come to the conclusion that the right to privacy is not just for pro-lifers.I admire Sarah Palin for keeping Trig. It was her decision to make. She made the choices that were good for herself and her family. She exercised a right she would deny others.And therein is the crux of the matter. as much as Palin spins she made a choice, she really, by virtue of her own beliefs and political stance had no choice. Nor does her daughter. All the statements of how proud they are she has decided to keep the baby are patently false because Bristol doesn’t believe in choice either.Palin doesn’t believe in allowing victims of rape or parents of babies diagnosed pre-birth with disabilities and congenital defects a choice. This is an amazing lack of both compassion and understanding. In making a rape victim bear a child forced on her by an act of violence, Palin not only inflicts extended punishment on the innocent, it rewards rapists for incurring pregnancies. In this, She (and pro-lifers who subscribe to her version of it) shows no understanding of societal mores and ethics, nor of victimization and psychology.Si I find it quite interesting that the republicans and the Palins are proudly endorsing their choices, but wish to deny others the same right.

anon

To all of you who are blaming Sarah and Todd Palin for their daughter’s decision to have sex: You must not have any children yourselves, because if you did, you would know that despite all of your good teachings, sometimes your kids make the wrong decisions. As a mom of four children, I know that I try hard to instill good values and morals into my children. Yet, there have been many times when they make the wrong choice or do the wrong thing. Does that make me a bad mom? Does that mean that I didn’t take the time to teach them? Does that mean that I’m too busy to care about them? No, it simply means that my children are people too, with minds of their own and wills of their own. Just because her daughter chose to disregard her parent’s teachings doesn’t make the Palins bad parents. It doesn’t mean they’re too busy to love their kids. To make such a generalized statement is ridiculous. Parents can not be held responsibile for the actions of kids who are almost adults. At some point, you have to let them make their own decisions and pray that they’ll remember what you tried to teach them as they were growing up.

Zach

Tim,Timothy Shriver: You’re reckless and selfish. So quit it!

Alex

Yes, Sarah Palin chose to bring a disabled child into the world. Yet she wants to deny other women the right to make that decision for themselves. Regardless of how noble religious people think Gov. Palin was for choosing not to abort, she was extremely irresponsible for having a child at her age. Women over 40 have are far more likely to have a child with Down Syndrome or other serious birth defect than younger women. It’s not as if she didn’t have other children to take care of.And please enough warm-and-fuzzy stories about how wonderful it may be to have a Down Syndrome child. From my own experience and observation, families with Down’s children often break under the strain. So often the eldest daughter of the family is expected to be the Down Syndome child’s unpaid caretaker. Love isn’t always enough.

George

I have recently been enlightened by the argument that, although I personally do not believe in abortion, I have no right to prevent someone else from making that choice.It’s very much in keeping with my belief that, while I don’t personally believe in slavery, I have no right to prevent you from owning one.Because really, what’s the difference? In both cases, the aborter/slave owner believes she owns the life in question.It’s just a blob of tissue / non-human, after all.

Anonymous

How in the world did they know early in the pregnancy that Trig had Down’s syndrome, unless they tested for it? Why would they test for any pre-natal diseases at all? Simply performing the test raises the risk of a miscarriage, so why do it if there were no other ‘choice’ besides carrying to term?Any pregnant woman who is seen by her ob/gyn knows you can’t go on a roller coaster, let alone an airplane ride past your 7th month. So what in the WORLD was she doing flying around during her 9th month? Particularly as she KNEW that Trig had Down’s, therefore was likely to have special problems from the very moment of birth? What lousy judgment.

sparrow

I truly dislike abortion but an embryo is a potential child, not an actual. At a certain point in its development, it becomes a baby, but it is not so at conception. The idea that a mass of dividing cells is suddenly a full blown human being is grounded in religious belief. Claiming a soul is in an egg or is suddenly sucked into a fertilized egg at the moment of conception is to assume that these vessels as it were were capable of holding such a thing. Until embryos reach a certain level of natal development, thinking a soul resides in them is like believing a sieve can hold water.darlajune wrote:”Just because some Americans believe that an unborn child (fetus) is not a person does not make it true. Hidden in the mother’s womb is a living human being, just as there is a living Eagle in an Eagle egg”By the same argument, just because some Americans believe a fetus is a person at conception does not make it true. Do you eat eggs? By your lights you’re eating a living animal. Do you eat nuts? You’re eating living trees. This is what your argument is. But in actuality, an egg has the potential to be a living bird, nuts have the potential to be a tree. I love eagles too. But I don’t mistake the potential in an eagle egg for an accomplished fact. Cellular life is a strange thing. There are certain cancerous tumors that develop like fetuses, even to having hair and proto-teeth. Once you apply “potential” to all your criteria, at some point those tumors could be called “life.” They grow, They develop. They use the resources of the mother. but it’s not life.And you could argue that they are not life because such a tumor will ultimately kill the mother, but that implies you view the mother as separate from the fetus. And that, in your philosophy is not allowed.

Athena

The point of this is: Sarah Palin made a choice to carry her child to term. Her daughter made a choice to carry her child to term and to raise it. However, Governor Palin and Senator McCain want to take away that choice for other American women – regardless of whether they’re 17, 44, rape victims, or whatever. She is telling American women that their choices are irrelevant.

spiderman2

George wrote “while I don’t personally believe in slavery, I have no right to prevent you from owning one.”If someone locks you up and make a slave out of you , don’t cry for help coz you are born to be a slave. You have no rights, idiot.

Tina

Palin said “we feel privileged that God would entrust us with this gift [Trig]”Dear Governor Palin: When God has ENTRUSTED you with such a gift as your son Trig, how could you refuse God’s gift by entrusting someone ELSE to raise Trig for the next 4 or 8 years as you spend most of your time travelling around the nation and the world? God entrusted YOU with this gift. Also, you and your husband have been working full time for years. Who’s been guiding your kids during that time? Wasn’t it possible for eithr him or you to curtail career a bit and focus on a big family that obviously has needed more parenting?Plus, four months from now, your house will be filled with TWO newborn babies (one with very special medical and parenting needs), plus a 17-yr-old new mother who CLEARLY needs more parental attention, plus two OTHER minor children who will likely be ignored. If I had a house like this, my husband and I would alter our lives to spend less money so that we can work less, get jobs nearby where we will always be home every single night with our big needy family, then after the kids are out of the early years, my husband and I would later re-focus on our careers.You knew you would have a house filled with soo many young lives in need when McCain asked you to run for VP. I can’t believe that you thought NOW was a good time for your family to do without you. You have a bright political career ahead of you and could have postponed your aspirations at national office for 10 years, to give your kids a good start in life.Your family clearly needs both you and your husband to be around a lot more often. How can you claim to have family values when your family is obviously not the thing you value most?I’m sad for the two babies in question.

sparrow

George- there is a huge difference. A slave is a human being, born into the world, and bereft of human rights. Fetuses/embryos have the potential to become human beings. Slaves are not potential human beings, they are real human beings. They live and operate within a society that demands equal rights for all. A fetus develops inside a woman’s womb. Denying a woman the right to choose for herself what her body will be used for, is akin to slavery. It’s also vastly intrusive. I wager if society said that penises of a certain size had to be cut off, you’d be the first to scream that you are denied your rights to your own body.

Anonymous

Please! All of the losers thinking they know anything about down syndrome. I gave birth to my son with down syndrome at the age of 26. We knew everything was pointing to down syndrome because of his health issues. I can not believe you people are judging her for having a kid at her age and for him having down syndrome. Shame on you. My son is light of my life.

anne

the kennedys had an imperfect child which they threw in a mental institution not known by the general public until her death yet they still practiced their Catholic religion.

Peoria Possum

Let’s choose not to call it a choice, you know like McDonalds vs. Burger King. Let’s try and speak truth. OKIt’s killing a baby, an innocent life.A free society still has “rules”. Thtat’s why it’s a society and not ananarchy.Can I murder the neighboor because he runs his lawnmower on Saturday morning-because I choose not to have him wake my lazy arse out of the bed? It’s just a choice, isn’t it?Rule #1 – you cannot kill your own child, just because he or she is inconvienient. That’s called murder.Start there and let’s meet in the middle on issues that do not including killing an innocent.

fblaze

Her decision to have trig was a virtuous choice. Her decision to lead the high octan life of Governor and now to run for Veep was selfish. I hope Trig has and the rest of the family have the resources and attention they need to thrive. I know many women who have chosen to defer great careers to raise their children, such as Sandra Day O’Connor. Ms. Palin will soon realize every thing has its price. The glamour of the political life is paid for by the family.

Anonymous

Everyone goes all warm and fuzzy over their own child. That’s to be expected. But let’s add up how much a lifetime of care will cost. Palin can afford it. For the rest of us who can’t, the choice is just that. A choice. One that Sarah & friends would like to take away.Meanwhile, why was she in an airplane that late in her pregnancy? That wasn’t ‘tough’, that was dumb and reckless endangerment. None of the attendants knew, and what if they had had to make an emergency landing for a woman who had boarded that plane, knowing her water had broken? Dumb & dumber.

spiderman2

Sparrow wrote “I truly dislike abortion but an embryo is a potential child, not an actual.”If your wife is pregnant and somebody punches your wife’s bulging stomach killing the baby inside, you can’t sue the guy for murder coz it’s not an actual child. Good point you have there. Your pregnant wife could easily be mistaken as a walking punching bag.

C. Point

I’ve noticed something interesting about “pro life” people. Most I’ve met are willing to create a life, whether by natural means or by artificial ones. They have no compunction playing God when it comes to creating life. But, when it comes to God’s biggest and most difficult responsibility — the ability to end an innocent life — they cower and say that they “don’t believe” in that responsibility.My own opinion is that if anyone is willing to play God and create a life, they must be willing to accept the full responsibility of possibly ending that life. I think Mrs. Palin did the admirable thing when she chose to keep her son, but she (and others) have no right to condemn people who make the equally responsible choice not to maintain a life. To use a baby, whether one with a disability or a “perfect” baby, as a prop for any sort of moral argument is nauseating and reprehensible. Shame on Mr. Shriver for even suggesting it.

Marc Edward

Sorry Mr. Shriver, but Ms. Palin isn’t what I’d call a great parent. I’ve been through three births with my wife and the story about the delivery of Trig is fantastic in it’s weirdness.

QuiverDaddy

“Choice acknowledges the right of another person to make decisions regarding their life and their own body. Pro-lifers impose their personal views and beliefs on others. “Do not those who write laws prohibiting murder impose their morals on others? Do we not have laws to protect children from being exploited by the porn industry? Aren’t these laws a moral imposition on those who wish to kill or produce kiddie porn?These questions are not as silly as they sound in the context of your assumptions about the motives of pro-life people. Their objective is not to tell you what you can do with your body, but like the murder laws and the child exploitation laws, their motive is to protect the body of another person — the baby — from being violated under contract.To effectively and accurately argue your case, you have to come to a common definition of what a person is, and how we can arrive at ANY law without any moral imposition. Thus, if we have laws prohibiting murder because murder is deemed by our culture to be immoral, we have to find a non-moral reason to prohibit murder in order to make the pro-abortion argument work. Same with kiddie porn. Clearly, the only reason to oppose such filth is because it is immoral on its face — and it is also exploitation of another person. If you take away the moral justification for making murder and kiddie porn illegal you have no basis for the laws.So your common ground cannot be whether or not it is to kill a “baby” since you do not believe a baby is a “person” until the mother herself declares her child to be a person. On that basis, a child cannot be considered a person in her own right until someone makes that declaration who is granted the standing in our courts to declare her a person (the mother). Without placing a value on human life or the individual worth of a person, abortion remains not only a legitimate choice regardless of what a court may declare, it becomes an article of faith for the whole anti-child movement. It is not a person, it is a potential carbon footprint.On the other hand, if your common ground definition of personhood can be focused on the fetus (so to speak), maybe we could agree that if the child can thrive outside the womb, she becomes a person. Senator Obama believes otherwise — if a child is born in a botched abortion, he supports active measures to kill her — after all, failure to do so violates the contract the child’s mother agreed to when she hired the doctor to perform the abortion. Senator Obama actually fought against laws to protect such children from infanticide based on his pro-choice views.This is why, like all laws, there has to be a moral and ethical consideration that determines when a person’s rights begin. If we can see this in our protection of baby seals and snail darters, why not extend this moral judgement to the human realm? The answer lies in the fact that the pro-abortion view cannot be defended on moral grounds. Unlike all other laws — including those which pro-aborts support — this one crime against humanity cannot be defined or debated on moral grounds to the advantage of the pro-abortion side.You are free in any case to do with your body whatever you wish. Please consider however, whether you should exercise such freedom over the body of another person who has nobody in the world to defend her rights. When you ask these questions, you may discover that there are more pro-life people in the party of abortion than you would think:At what point should a fetus be regarded as a person?1. Shortly after she is born (unless the result of a failed abortion attempt)2. When she can live outside the womb.3. When there is brainwave activity and evidence she can feel pain.4. When she has a heartbeat.5. When she has identifying personal characteristics (such as fingerprints, eyebrows, etc.).6. At conception.7. _____________________–you fill in the blank.All but the first one (Obama’s position) fall within the spectrum of pro-life thought. Some beleive life begins at conception and should be protected from that point on. Others believe in exceptions for rape, incest or the life of the mother. Still others believe viability outside the womb — without exceptions is a pro-life position.What all of those views — and Obama’s as well — amount to is moral judgement. So the question of consequence is, whose morals will prevail?

Mark

I’m a father of a daughter with Down’s Syndrome. Living in Australia, we don’t have such a strong religious culture as the US and so fortunately do not debate these issues in such a polarised Christian vs Liberal way.For what it’s worth, my wife and I are not at all religious (actually we’re the opposite) but see the possibility of allowing a disabled child to live happily within their own limitations as a human rights issue (based on general notions of humanism rather than religion)I would never criticise a women’s decision to terminate her pregnancy if the child is disabled (and that’s a term covering a broad spectrum of conditions). However, what concerns me is the pressures women feel to terminate because such a bleak picture is presented of disabled children. We are always asked in amazement “did’nt you have the test done?”, as though we were somehow irresponsible to continue with the pregnancy. I don’t want to seem too “warm and fuzzy”, but watching my little girl getting her breakfast ready and packing her bags to school, and looking forward to the day ahead, I think we made the right decision.

Secular

Matteucs wrote:

Grumpy

Let’s be fair here. It wasn’t just Bristol who decided to have sex. It was Levi too.So there you go, two sets of grandparents-to-be whose kids completely ignored whatever script they were supposed to be following. Correct me if I’m wrong, but can anyone cite examples of roving bands of abortionists preventing women from carrying their fetuses to term? Goodness knows there are plenty of people who hassle women going into and out of clinics that perform abortions, along with other reproductive services.Speaking of pre-natal advice, why didn’t Sarah Palin pay attention to her doctor? What was she doing on an airplane that late in her high-risk pregnancy? Didn’t she listen closely enough the four previous times, let alone the fifth?

Colette

I am the mother of a down Syndrome child. I did not take any test prior to her birth and have never once regreted my choice to keep her. She does everything her siblings do, but at a slower pace. She has never weighed me down, nor has she been a “ball and chain” for my husband and I. I’ve seen more “normal” kids mis-behave, make dumb choices and cause their parents heartache. My DS child is the most compliant happy kid in our whole neighborhood. Plain and simple. Let me tell you this… each and everyone one of you can stand to learn something from people with Down Syndrome. Sure they’re loving… yadi-yadi-yada… but most importantly, they don’t judge other people, they don’t make fun of others or care what you look like, or the amount of money you have in your bank account. They want to serve you and make you happy. To them, you are a valuable human being… Isn’t it a shame that we live in such a cruel world that ignorant people go around putting people with DS down and treating them like they are less than us. Stop treating them like they have something “missing”, because I have news for you… they actually have something extra that you don’t… and that extra chromosone is there to teach the “normal” society how to treat one another. Unless you are the parent/sibling of a child with DS, find another panel to post your negative comments on. Stick to a subject that you actually know about.

Sane Person

Hold on a minute. You people are lauding this woman, or anyone who decides the bring a fully mentally disabled child into this world, while this country already has an enormous population of fully mentally disabled people living on the streets, homeless, jobless, moneyless, and therefore hopeless? And you applaud that because it fits in with your “political” beliefs, regardless of the founding father’s stipulation separating church and state? It’s about time someone take a look at those truly disadvantaged in our country. If the pro life movement is actually about life, and quality of it, why don’t they then focus their time and money and energies on helping the living disadvantaged souls, in our ghettos, and fund ways to improve the lives of the millions of homeless and the millions of poverty stricken people already alive. That would be more pro life than bringing a developmentally disabled infant into the world. If you want to prove you love life so much, help those already born, in dire straits, in desperate need of your help.

sparrow

spiderman2:”If your wife is pregnant and somebody punches your wife’s bulging stomach killing the baby inside, you can’t sue the guy for murder coz it’s not an actual child.Good point you have there. Your pregnant wife could easily be mistaken as a walking punching bag. “Viable is the operative word. and if you fully read my post you would have read that I believe abortion should be allowed only up to a certain point in an embryo’s development. FYI – I think 16 weeks is too far along.Really, do try to come up with more intelligent arguments.

Anonymous

The only reason Sarah Palin can use the word ‘choice’ regarding her decision is because of many other people working hard to ensure that there is a choice. That you could control the circumstances of conception (or not), as well as having the option of not carrying a child to term at all. Remember, it was illegal in this country for many years to teach about contraception, let alone make condoms available. And there are those who would prefer that we go back to those good old days. Too bad neither Bristol nor Levi seem to have used a condom properly, or hey! The governor’s little girl probably had some money, why not spring for Today sponge AND a condom?

Ernesto

Sarah Palin should concentrate on caring for her children, especially Trig, so say a lot of entlightened pro-abortion women. Swell. Would these feminazis, as Camille Paglia puts it, shut up? If Sarah Palin were a man, would these female bleeding hearts say the same thing?

Quiverdaddy

Sorry for double posting, but this aspect of the argument is prominent among pro-aborts who are focused on dividing cells and Zygotes: “It’s just a mass of tissue and not a person.”Can we agree that if a child is born outside the womb, cries and breathes unassisted, she is no longer a mass of tissue?If so, you are more pro-life than Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton.Can we agree that if the child is able to thrive outside the womb as many preemies now are, that she is a person?If so, you are in agreement with many of the people who consider themselves to be pro-life.Can we agree that if the child has a heartbeat and brainwave activity and can feel pain that she is a person who should be allowed to develop to term and be born alive?If so, you’re in agreement with many who consider themselves pro-life.Can we agree that if the child has discernable human characteristics, eyes, fingerprints, hair, etc. that she should be allowed to grow to term and be born alive?If so, you’re in agreement with many people who consider themselves pro-life.Do you understand that most women do not discover that they are pregnant until the baby has a heartbeat and discernable human characteristics — at 10 to 12 weeks.Most pro-lifers, even many who hold the view that life begins at conception — would acknowledge that the child should be protected at that 10 to 12 week and beyond stage.Sometimes, it seems that to be truly pro-abortion, you must accept the notion that a woman should be entitled to put a contract out on her child even on the way to the hospital in labor after her water has broken. And you should be able to sue the doctor if he doesn’t kill the child if she’s born alive after all that drama.The reality is, when you consider carefully what the range of pro-life positions are, you will probably fall somewhere within that range. The hard core pro-aborts fall in a range that includes the full nine months of pregnancy, and like Obama in some cases, shortly after a live birth if a contract was put out on the child beforehand.

sparrow

“These questions are not as silly as they sound in the context of your assumptions about the motives of pro-life people. Their objective is not to tell you what you can do with your body, but like the murder laws and the child exploitation laws, their motive is to protect the body of another person — the baby — from being violated under contract.”Except they have defined “person” in the context of their own personal beliefs, not on the biological development. They also deny any right to the woman to determine what to do with her body and with her life. Murder and child exploitations laws involve imposing on another. Murder denies life to another person, child exploitation abuses them. Pro-Lifers assume more rights for a mass of developing cells than for the woman who carries them. And when the baby is born, they assume no responsibility for that life. That sounds a lot like child exploitation to me.

Anonymous

Peoria Possum “But for almost all abortions, the choice to have sex was indeed made by the woman. The vast majority. Not the deciding factor, but something for you to think about.”Can we get any more misogynist or ignorant than that? what an immensely dumb statement.

Concerned voter

Does Palin’s candidacy mean we don’t have to listen to religious fanatics anymore telling us that a woman’s place is in the home? There is a lot to admire about her ability to juggle 5 kids and a career.

DoTheRightThing

Tim wrote, “A middle ground could emerge that embraces our shared values rather than emphasizing our differences. The two parties could agree that we should do everything we can to choose life while doing nothing to make the choosing illegal.” In other words, Tim asks those who are pro-life to abandon all unborn children to the mercies of the pro-abortionists in exchange for their promise to “do everthing they can to choose life”, even though such a promise would equate to Planned Parenthood and its like would be volunteering thereby to forfeit millions of dollars in revenue. Somehow, I can’t see this approach having any real effect to reduce the number of abortions. Tim, there is no other way forward in the pro-life struggle than self-sacrifice – tell the truth without euphemisms, forgive the pro-abortionists, and love unconditionally (not counting the cost). It was a horrendous legal decision that loosed the floodgates of Death onto the unborn children in our country, and it will take either a justice-affirming court decision or a constitutional amendment to close those same gates. Do the right thing, Tim, regardless of your family’s Democratic heritage and your personal ties to many Democratic organizations and individuals. The babies will thank you for it!

Melissa

TINA – I absolutely agree with you. I couldn’t have said it better myself. And everyone is saying what a wonderful woman this is, the evangelicals, etc. Where are the family values? Sure, it was easy for her to “decide” to have the DS baby, she won’t be raising it. She went back to work 3 days after the birth of her son. And don’t you people give me the whole “sexist” arguement. I haven’t heard anyone say the husband is going to quit his job or work part-time to care for this very large, needy family if his wife becomes VP. I don’t care if it is the woman or the man raising a family, but SOMEONE should be doing it. And I don’t believe for a second that either of the parents work a 9-5 job. Please. They don’t believe in birth control, or legal abortion. Fine. So instead they work long hours at high paying jobs to further their careers, then pay someone else to raise the 5 children. The poor baby boy didn’t even get a week to bond with his supposed “proud” momma. As for the pregnant teenage daughter, these things happen, and I doubt she had much parenting to guide her. But I would suggest a re-think of the abstinence only program.

sparrow

quiverdaddy:”Do you understand that most women do not discover that they are pregnant until the baby has a heartbeat and discernible human characteristics — at 10 to 12 weeks.”Obviously you’re not a woman.Never had or missed a period. Never monitored your monthly changes. Nor do you have a knowledge of fetal development because you would know that many fetuses all across the animal kingdom at certain points in their development look remarkably like a human one. Human embryos show vestiges of gills at one stage. They have tails which eventually disappear for the most part but the coccyx bone is the vestige that remains. The large head, the arms and legs, the eyes and “face” are not so discernibly human as mammal.

Dan Schwartz

When questioned about Trig &/or Bristol and Levi’s new arrival, she need only answer “It Takes a Village to Raise a Child.”

Dan Schwartz

Gov. Palin need only reply when asked about Trig &/or Bristol & Levi’s baby, “It takes a Village to raise a child.”

Gene

Why isn’t Trig an argument for pro-choice? The Palins can be glad they don’t live in China, whether the government gets to decide whether they have children or not. I am opposed to abortion, and I like the idea that Trig can help more people choose life, but I don’t consider government the solution to the problem as she does. Her ability to make the choice is commendable, but it does not me she should make the choice for every other woman.

Concerned The Christian Now Liberated

Downs Syndrome children and adults think and know right from wrong i.e. they have souls i.e. they have the human spirit just like the rest of us. Sure they look different and are typically slower in speech and action but killing them in the womb violates the god command/evolved rule “Thou Shalt Not Kill”. Are we to kill all unborn children who do not meet some standard?? Are of the wrong gender?

thundercade

Abortion will never be made illegal in the U.S. – – – never.Republicans tease pro-lifers with the hope it will become illegal so that you vote for them. That’s it. That’s all it’s ever been about. Do you honestly think that Republicans are going to make abortion a priority at all during the times they are in power? You would think that such a moral crime of taking innocent lives would be at the top of the agenda of any cabinet that felt so strongly about the topic. But it’s not, and never is.Republicans (most of them, anyway) take a strict pro-life view because it helps solidify votes. People who hold political office are educated enough to not ever care what an individual does with their life. But they know how much *you* care about what other people do with their lives, so they seed a hope in your head that they are the only chance to move towards laws that benefit your beliefs.Add in that, especially in today’s society, no one is going to even think about passing a law that (to many people) forces a woman to do something with her body that she doesn’t want to. Even if that something is considered the right thing to do by certain people. (again, because that would mean losing a large group of women voters forever)The same goes for gay marriage. Deep down, there are probably only a handful of Republicans who actually believe there is a moral wrongness to gay marriage. Everyone else who openly opposes it does so to solidify votes from Religious people. Religious people who they know are viciously opposed to it, and will act out that opposition when they vote. That’s it.

Anonymous

If you are a Christian and think that abortion may be okay in some cases, I challenge you to pick up your Bible and read the gospels. Christ speaks in the Gospels and his message is clear. Love the Lord your God above all else and love each other as you love yourself. He doesn’t split hairs, provide conditions, etc.Once you’re done, ask yourself where the love is in abortion. There is none. At best, it is a horribly selfish action. At best.

MIchael Tadano

How about letting everyone make their own choice? Obviously the Palins are people of means who can afford to have a child like this. The principle of Freedom of Religion we supposedly enjoy in this country would allow those who don’t share the Palin’s convictions to have an option.The problem with the religious extremists in this country is that they share one very dangerous commonality with the Muslim extremists that George Bush and Company have taught us to fear… They wish to impose their religious views on everyone else. That is wrong.I am opposed to abortion as a means of birth control. But sometimes that option is the only salvation a young woman has. Sarah Palin is opposed to abortion even in the case of rape or incest. That’s just wrong.

Anonymous

Agree, Melissa and Tina. the family values and home situation (they obviously must be able to afford help)of the Palins not only makes their choices doable, but at the same time allows a disconnect. I’m not a believer in the woman’s place is in the home, but c’mon! 5 kids, one a 17 year old who is pregnant out of wedlock, and a 5 month old child with DS. If you want to talk about responsibility and strong family values, you need to live what you say.Palin’s daughter is pregnant- a poster child for the ineffectiveness of the abstinence only program her mother promotes. Truly, ignorance is not bliss. How is it that the woman who the republican party is touting as the epitome of right wing family values is actually the argument against them?

Marc Edward

QuiverDaddy writes “Choice acknowledges the right of another person to make decisions regarding their life and their own body. Pro-lifers impose their personal views and beliefs on others. “”Do not those who write laws prohibiting murder impose their morals on others?”No, because you cannot have functioning civilization without laws that protect people from being murdered.

Marc Edward

Concerned The Christian Now Liberated writes Who is advocating killing Downs Syndrom Children? If you get pregnant and your baby has a problem, you can have it if you want to. “they have the human spirit just like the rest of us. Sure they look different and are typically slower in speech and action but killing them in the womb violates the god command/evolved rule “Thou Shalt Not Kill”.”I don’t consider abortion to be murder, perhaps you do. “Are we to kill all unborn children who do not meet some standard?? Are of the wrong gender?”Not sure where that question comes from, as nobody is saying “we” need to abort anyone or any class of people. It’s up to individuals.

KBEETX

What article or admendment of the US Constitution outlines the “right to privacy”?

sparrow

Palin’s daughter is a perfect example of what’s wrong with programs that teach abstinence only. but more than that, Palin proves that the republican party is rally out of touch with women and with traditional family values. I strongly believe a woman should not have to stay home simply because she has children. But 5 children, one with DS? That’s a lot of responsibility and no one in their right mind can possibly say the Vice Presidency is a 35 hr/week job with weekends and holidays off.Palin can afford to hire nannies and make sure her children are taken care of- but for someone who espouses traditional family values, mothering in the third person is hardly that. If she is willing to put her career ahead of her children (and indeed she is doing just that), who is to say she can be responsible enough to take charge of the United states should she ever – what a nightmare scenario this is!- become President?I only wonder why she had 5 children if her career was going to take precedence? Surely she knows about birth control and contraception? Or is that something else she doesn’t believe in?

Michelle

I would like to point out that christians beleive god created everything. Now if that is so, why do animals eat there young when something is wrong with them? I’m not saying we should eat our young. I am just saying that maybe aborting a child that couldn’t live life to its fullest and survive on its own isn’t murder.

Jeff in Los Angeles

Hmmmm….she made a CHOICE to have the baby. So isn’t that pro-CHOICE?

just take a look

“Shriver is apparently new to the abortion debate. The above is a fairly accurate description of the pro-choice position. Welcome!”I’m amazed Tim Shriver (political newbie) somehow managed to repeat the dems latest abortion plank almost verbatim in his chatty heartfelt post on a FAITH forum.Wow.

spiderman2

Anon wrote “Can you really be this much of a knuckledragger and still walk upright? Honestly, I’d be terrified to live in the same world you do. “That’s strange. Baby killers are afraid of baby protectors? Yeah, I get it. Criminals are afraid of the cops.”But the FEARFUL, AND UNBELIEVING.. shall have their part into the lake of FIRE.” No wonder you are fearful. Be afraid then.

priscilla gale

Please don’t tell my daughter she must marry and have a baby in the event of an unplanned teen pregnancy. I believe the way she chooses to deal with it will be the correct way. It is her life, and her decision. Governor Palin can do as she wishes with her family, (she obviously does not put her children first) but I resent her telling me how to run my family. Her attitude is not American and does not represent Freedom. Its fascism, and the nation would be better if Ms. Palin worked on better management of her family and lawsuits than imposing her religious and moral beliefs on my family. I am deeply offended by Ms. Palin, and would like to see her really put family first. There is time for carreer later for Ms Palin, her family needs her now!

Anonymous

Women don’t want to abort their children; they want to choose life for their unborn babies. The Obamas could easily provide their daughters and a potential grandchild with all the financial, material and emotional support necessary to raise a child. Yet Obama has said that he would prefer that his own grandchild be aborted. What a sad message to communicate to one’s own daughter, that he would consider her child to be a punishment to be gotten rid of. (And if the baby survived the abortion, that s/he should be left to die.) He is an illustration of why the phrase “pro-choice” is just empty rhetoric that really does mean anti-life.

Anonymous

12:52 here. Observer- stuff it. “Although the probability increases with maternal age, 80% of children with Down syndrome are born to women under the age of 35,[15] reflecting the overall fertility of that age group. Recent data also suggest that paternal age, especially beyond 42,[16] also increases the risk of Down Syndrome manifesting in pregnancies in older mothers.[17]”

spiderman2

Anon wrote “Can you really be this much of a knuckledragger and still walk upright?Snakes crawl and have no chance of walking upright but I bet all snakes are samrter than you. Where in the world can you see a creature who believes he/she is a very complex system and yet also believes that same system just existed by itself? Ain’t that the pinnacle of stupidity?Don’t you realize that even a simple straight line CANNOT be achieved without intelligence? How much more a very complex system. Idiot.

jca

There are so many kids born healthy and a burden to society far more than Trig. We should stop seeing life from a utilitarian point of view. Lives can be lived in full amidst the trials of H.C. children and on the contrary lived poorly without these trials. Life is a gift, it does not always comes the way we wanted it. Given the right metal attitude all gifts of life will always bring blessings and fullness far beyond our expectations. Sarah Palin should be commended for her resolve and conviction. These traits are hard to come by these days and so it is odd and disturbing to the liberals, the media, and the academia – how unfortunate!

Anonymous

anon 1:13- Why don’t you show us the exact quote? Not lies, not innuendo, not rumor. Unless, of course, the Vulcan mind meld that allows you to see into Sen. Obama’s mind is not working tonight?spiderman2: “Baby killers are afraid of baby protectors? ” You know, I think delusion suits you. It makes your posts funky and quaint- I just love the idea of you in your little knight’s costume with the little wooden sword.Afraid? No, sadly you totally missed the irony in my statement. I forgot you see everything in literal terms so you wouldn’t have understood. Tsk. I really meant that I felt sorry for you who lives in such a world of hate and fear and the only way you can think to mitigate your dismay is to try to drag everyone else down with you.Jesus walked in light.He taught compassion and the Golden rule. You have about as much comprehension of him or the bible as a cat has an understanding of Tolstoy.

Democrat&Woman&Mother

What a lot of vitriol has been aimed at Sarah Palin, I’ve never voted Republican in my life but I am absolutely disgusted by the hate and by the sexism – and oh yes, Hillary was right. Sexism is rampant in this country. Prior to this election, I would have guessed racism was worse, but no sexism in the U.S. is a major problem now. How dare people accuse her of being a “bad mother”. Baloney, I haven’t heard anybody accusing Michelle Obama (who has spent the last 2 years campaigning with her husband and not babysitting) of being a lousy mother, or Barack Obama, John McCain or Joe Biden of being bad fathers because they have ALL spent months, if not years, campaigning, campaigning, campaigning. You should all be ashamed of yourselves.I thought Barack Obama was supposed to be the new politician, the person who brought people together. I assumed it was only neo-cons who ran around frothing at the mouth like rabid dogs.How depressing to see Democrats are just as bad – maybe worse.All you’re doing is making women (like me) really angry.Drop the personal attacks, rumors, gossip, crap.

Anonymous

Just Me:If Bristol is 17 and her boyfriend Levi is 18 isn’t that statutory rape?September 2, 2008 8:44 PM_________________________________Sorry, your desperate attempt to taint the family somehow is not on the right track.No, it is not statutory rape. If a minor has a lover within an age difference of five ears and the sex is consensual, it is considered a normal sexual relationship with a peer by mutual consent.

Anonymous

Just Me:If Bristol is 17 and her boyfriend Levi is 18 isn’t that statutory rape?September 2, 2008 8:44 PM_________________________________No, it is not statutory rape. If a minor has a lover within an age difference of five YEARS and the sex is consensual, it is considered a normal sexual relationship with a peer by mutual consent.

vgeist

Maybe I’m heartless, but why bring a child into the world who can never be a productive member of society, especially when you have advanced knowledge of the condition? And not only a non-productive member of a society, but a burden to it. Am I supposed to applaud her decision? It’s often portrayed as a selfless act, but I think it’s more of a selfish act.

JTS

The media is making such a big deal about Palin’s daughter being pregnant. This causes so much angst by the media, but yet Barack Obama was conceived out of wedlock, too, when his mother was only 18 yrs old. Obama’s parents married in Feb and he was born in August. This is all such blatant hypocrisy.

priscilla gale

dear vgeist: you are not heartless. after the novelty wares off, and poor trig starts fighting with Bristols baby, we will all be stuck with the bill of supporting this choice when she awards him to the state. its just a matter of time, no one in that house will sacarafice to take care of a very very needy child. Trig will be far needier than Bristol, and see how she was overlooked time and time again, especially with accepting this nomination in the time of family crisis! Shame on her, not you, you have a heart!

Democrat&Woman&Mother

Yeah, Vgeist, you are heartless. Also, you have a lot of free time if you’re trolling a site just to trash someone. How productive a member of society are you? When I read all the incredibly hate-filled posts about Palin and her baby, I wonder if those posters aren’t a burden on society..

spiderman2

Anon wrote “I really meant that I felt sorry for you who lives in such a world of hate and fear and the only way you can think to mitigate your dismay is to try to drag everyone else down with you. Jesus walked in light. He taught compassion and the Golden rule.”The usual wolf-in-sheep-clothing rhetoric. Love the criminals even as they do the crime right in your face. Whahhaatt? Who are you gonna fool? God created hell to fry those criminals including those who watch and enjoy the crime.You consider yourself an expert of the Bible and yet believes in evolution? When did it become possible? Idiot.

Katie

VGEIST:As JCA said there are plenty of people in this world who are perfectly healthy but live unproductive and wasteful lives. Why are we constantly measuring the value of life based on the Western obsession with production and money? There is more than one way to live a happy and fulfilling life. The value of one’s life should not be based on “how much can he/she produce,” “how much money can she/he make,” how much can he/she consume.” Millions of people died while fighting against this fascist/Nazi mentality. Don’t let their deaths be in vain!

priscilla gale

katie- put your money where your mouth is!! start helping teens by giving them money to get on the right track after a bad move- did you know Palin cut the budget to help teen moms get back to highschool and graduate and get back on track? are you willing to help with donations?

D. Rodriguez

It makes me sad that we live in such a cynical and “pragmatic” world. So much hate and judgement.So little care and caring for the most defenseless members of our society. Too much trouble or expense to care for a “less than perfect” child. Wow, so much for compassion. After much thought on the matter, I personally believe that we must let each individual make their own choice and live with their own conscience. Truly, it is a terrible tragedy that some people do not have what it takes to chose life for their unborn child, but that is how it is. A sad fact of life, but a reality all the same.Having said that, there should be SERIOUS restrictions and regulations in place and only allowed very early on in the pregnancy. THERE MUST be respect for the dignity of the life that is being extinguished and it should NEVER, EVER be late into the term except when the life of the mother is threatened.There must be compromise in this issue but Pro Choice people should realize that a life is being taken and THAT should never be taken lightly. If they have so little that they can not even save the life of their own child, what hope it there for such a person. They obviously are beyond being able to care for or love their own child. SO TRAGIC.

spiderman2

Legally, it is statutory rape but laws have loopholes. Laws are made to protect the people and in this case the minor. If followed by the book, it defeats the purpose of the law coz you are not protecting the minor who is about to get married with her boyfriend if he goes to prison.Strange, but those who want the boy imprisoned are the ones who are really strange.

Katie

PRISCILLA GALE:I don’t know if that comment is directed towards me, but I’m the only “Katie” who has posted here so I guess it is. Actually Ms. Gale, I work with homeless and low-income kids in my state for my job. Secondly, I plan to vote from Obama, not McCain. I am posting these messages from a disability rights perspective, not as a Republican…because I’m not a Republican. I’m hope that clarifies things.

KGhana

This is seriously nuts, this praise of Palin. She politicizes everything, so strong is her self-love. Did the world need to know that she carefully considered her options and decided to carry the pregnancy to term? Did anyone ask her? Wouldn’t the fact of his birth have shown that she made some kind of decision to have him. Why are we awarding medals for this kind of solipsistic behavior? Will Trig be cared for in a home for the thirty or forty years he will outlive his parents? Or will he be imposed on siblings.And then the cloying statement she made when she announced her daughter’s pregnancy. Again, self-love by the bucket, no indication that Bristol was speaking for herself, as opposed to behaving in conformance to her mother’s wishes. Why didn’t Bristol issue her own press statement, instead of being outed in a way that promotes her mother’s posture of kindly understanding and empathy?Whole thing makes me sick.

Anonymous

Victoria:You seem to have just pointed out reasons for making a strong case for complete abstinence until the age of 18 for both boys and girls. Boys should be warned they could end up in prison for having sex with a girl below the age of 18. OK they could check out in which state they live, and travel to the state where sex is permissible at a younger age.The young ones could use that time to direct their hormone filled bodies to other purposes. Tough, but it seems to be the safest way, even legally speaking.

Anonymous

Victoria:There is only one correction to be made regarding the use of the word “statutory rape” in a consensual sexual relationship between a 17 and 18 year old as in this case:Where there is no allegation, there is no defendant, there is no case.

Anonymous

Statutory Rape Laws Alaska:§ 11. 41. 434First-degree sexual abuse of a minor for someone age 16 or older to engage in sexual penetration with someone under age 13.§ 11. 41. 436Second-degree sexual abuse of a minor for someone age 16 or older to engage in sexual penetration with someone who is age 13, 14, or 15 and at least three years younger than the offender.§ 11. 41. 440Fourth-degree sexual abuse of a minor for someone under age 16 to engage in sexual penetration with someone under age 13 and at least three years younger.

Alex

fr sane person:>…If you want to prove you love life so much, help those already born, in dire straits, in desperate need of your help.SO true. Ever notice that the ones who weep and wail and drag small children along to “lovingly” “pray” outside of women’s health clinics immediately AFTER the baby is born “suddenly” change their outlook on this “obvious welfare mother”? I sure have!

K Peterson

Let’s turn this around. Single mom who makes $25,000 a year with no health insurance–how much of a blessing would a down’s child be when you have no resources to support or help that child? Of course Pallin can keep the baby; she makes a heafty salary and has all the resources at her finger tips to help that child. And for a woman who believes in abstinence education ONLY-her 17 year old daughter is a Exhibit “A” that it doesn’t work.

Mike

She was back to work in 3 days after giving birth. God’s little miracle I say!!That and she’s never ever holding the child. I just had a boy 2 months ago and I don’t want to put him down when I get home from work. Guess I’m just not ambitious enough to put myself above my child.

Anonymous

Just remember to be prepared for a child with Down’s syndrome to grow up with the same hard-wiring sexual desire as the rest of us.Far too many of them are abused by others, but don’t think that means they are incapable of abusing others themselves. See the poster at 12.00 a.m. today.Is anyone else as upset as I am that Palin fired a librarian for refusing to go along with her (Palin’s) plan to ban certain books? I find that exceedingly chilling, to put it bluntly. I don’t know if there was ever a suggestion that certain books should be restricted to adults (you can do that in Carroll County, Maryland–give a kid unlimited access to all the library has, or limit it to the kids books) and that settled the fracas. But she FIRED the LIBRARIAN for disagreeing with her! Yech.

langx

Does Palin’s daughter have a choice not to have an AK47 marriage. Palin’s belief in abstinence has led to her daughter mistake. Do you compound by forcing her to marry. Where is the Christian outrage for forcing her to marry.

Marc Edward

Anonymous writes “Is anyone else as upset as I am that Palin fired a librarian for refusing to go along with her (Palin’s) plan to ban certain books? I find that exceedingly chilling, to put it bluntly.”I’ve said here and elsewhere that the argument against Palin isn’t about experience. George Will has noted that some of the best prepared, most “qualified” Presidents turned out to be duds. The problem with Palin is that she abuses power and that she advocates bad policies. Look at her record and there is plenty to make the average American wince.

Starver

I did finally see the photo of Timothy Shriver. He looks like a doofus.

Anonymous

“Forcing” the parents of a growing child to marry is another word for forcing them to give their child both parents and a home. It is also about forcing them to take responsibility for their actions without killing an innocent, defenseless third party – their child – for their mistake or leaving a seventeen year old alone to take the responsibility for an action that takes two.In traditional societies where sex outside marriage was strictly prohibited, a family with the full approval of the whole society would do the same – force the man to take responsibility for his action, if he was single. Abortion was never considered an option.

Anonymous

langx:Does Palin’s daughter have a choice not to have an AK47 marriage.Palin’s belief in abstinence has led to her daughter mistake.Do you compound by forcing her to marry.Where is the Christian outrage for forcing her to marry.September 3, 2008 4:33 AM_________________________________When was the last time a mother’s belief was responsible for a child’s action, in this case a 17 year old?Even contraception is not 100% reliable. The seventeen/eighteen year old couple could have been using contraceptives. BTW, IS GOVERNOR PALIN’S DAUGHTER RUNNING FOR VP?

mark mcdonald

Can Trig understand trigonometry? He is just a cute useless pooping baby to be pampered with. What a waste of resources to raise that baby. Palin should put her money to good use and do humanity a favor by adopting a healthy abandoned third world children who badly need support. I’m just being pragmatist.

Shari

I am offended at the term pro-life. People who are pro-choice are not against the right to life by default. People who are pro-choice defend the right of choice and not having a will imposed upon the woman. Someone who is pro-choice is just as liable to make the decision to keep a child. Pro-choice means taking everything into account rather than just saying that the termination of a pregnancy is wrong across the board.

Cheryl

Don’t know where you people are getting your info, but on every site I have read, the age of sexual consent in Alaska is 16, not 18 and I would not rely on Wikipedia either.Why are people bashing Sarah Palin for making the CHOICE to keep and raise a Down’s Syndrome baby?

Beatrix

The viciousness of some of these comments is appalling. Take Mark MacDonald, who believes it’s a waste of resources to raise a “cute pooping baby” with Downs’ Syndrome — apparently because the baby will probably never understand trigonometry. (And who contradicts Shari’s reasonable post about choice by highlighting the fact that for some people, pro-choice does not imply that there are actually two choices. It means that there’s only one acceptable choice — abortion — and if you don’t choose it, you and your infant will be bitterly attacked for wasting the resources of the world.) Or LangX who insists on no evidence whatsoever that the Palins are “forcing” their daughter to marry. Or the unbelievable attacks on Palin by several commenters for “trying to kill her baby” by flying home to Alaska (after consulting on the phone with her doctor, of course, but let’s leave that part out) before her labor was induced (INDUCED, people, that means she wasn’t in labor on the plane) . . . but I can’t stand to read any more of them. People. Have any of you considered following Barack Obama’s request to leave the candidates’ children and family lives alone???How heartbreaking that the gentle, rational, thoughtful column of Tim Shriver led to this outpouring of irrational vitriol. I can’t remember another national election that exposed this kind of national sickness of the soul.

Anonymous

I’d like to encourage the Obama backing Palin bashers to whip themselves into a frenzy again. Their posting has slacked off. Their vile attacks on Palin’s private life are cementing Obama’s failure in November- so please nasty Obama backers step up to the fight- but remember payback is a b itch.

JC

Tim:From a parent’s perspective having a Down syndrome baby is both noble and wonderful especially if you have the financial capacity to afford it (unless you are counting on the govt) – but moreover you are in a position to devote the special attention that is needed for raising such a kid vs. applying for being second in line for one of the most challenging positions.However I would imagine that from that kids perspective it becomes less noble when he begins to notice his ‘vast’ difference between himself and his peers (unless one to assume that because they have the disease they are also too stupid too feel emotions)! But that is just the beginning the real nobility comes when you as a parent are no longer alive to take care of your adult child — and unless you are able to leave him a trust fund (as I’m sure VP Palin will be too) he is forced to either count on government welfare for help or take on odd jobs like mopping McDonalds with no real opportunity in bettering his life (the American way).Lastly regarding your assumption on VP Palin’s choice to not abort, it presumes it was not because since she had been a pro life proponent she couldn’t turn around and risk her own political career by now saying she is pro choice in certain cases and/or pro life but only for others — a difficult presumption, unless you are able to read minds.

Ralph

Sarah should be jailed for not using contraceptives at the age of 44, resulting in the (not-unexpected) birth of a DownSyndrome child. This is high-risk behavior. Sarah is pure SELFISHNESS disguised as sanctimonious pro-life crap. She’s about the most selfish you can be as a human on this planet. She should lose her license to be a human being. Banish her to the next planet over — reserved for the terminally sanctimonious. REAL pro-lifers are more responsible to LIFE. They are Pro-Birth control. They are Anti-Death penalty that kills 13 percent innocents, (even more down South). They are ANTI-WAR. Read The (frickin) Book yourself! Not what professional pro-lifers say is in the Book.Sarah is about as far as you can get from a true Christian.

Irene

The point is her judgement. Any intelligent woman who get pregnant at 43 years of age is rolling the dice on her kids right. did she ever give a thought to who was going to take care of an adult who may or may not be potty trained? She and her husband will be dead some day leaving their other kids to take care of him; if they want to. To me this shows a non-thinker.

Kay

Sorry, but choosing life, means sticking around to take care of it too. Now many women would make her same choice if they had her money, position and help. But most of us do not. She should respect the decision of other parents who decide not to continue with a pregnancy for whatever reason. EVERY decision to abort doesn’t involve Downs Syndrome. Some babies are severely deformed or will only live a few hours after birth. Why make a mother go through 9 months only to watch her child die? We have more sympathy for animals in this country.

kwy

A life is not a matter of choice. It is not granted to us to choose whether a life should enter this world or not. A woman’s CHOICE is whether to have unprotected or premarital sex that could potentially result in an unwanted pregnancy. (I am not talking about rape cases). It is a shame that we do not take responsibility for our lusts and passions but make life, something that God set apart for sacred use, a matter of our choice.

D. Rodriguez

A beautiful, moving piece with some wonderful points. Unfortunately, there are too many cynics, devoid of faith, hope, charity and love.I don’t judge anyone’s decision in this matter, but I do judge the disgusting and depraved remarks some people seem to think are clever or “witty”. Shame. Shame. Shame.

D. Rodriguez

Rob L said: “What we have here, is a bunch of mental toddlers. Tim might as well be tossing witches on fires, burning heretics at the stake, and inquisiting Jews in Spain. He thinks there is something called god out there. And yet, he’s simply insane, propogating lies in the name of some delusion.”THIS is a prime example of the hate speech, bigotry and intolerance that atheists have.More than anything, they LOVE to insult, assault and harass. I sincerely do not understand where they feel the right to be so hateful and abusive on a DAILY basis in this section. The lowest form of nastiness and a “tolerated” form of bigotry. WHY????

Mary Victor

How can this pro-lifer have gotten on an airplane with a broken amniotic sac and flown 8 hours back to Alaska with a stopover in Seattle?? When your water breaks, the child has a much higher risk of infection. She put the life of a premature, Down’s syndrome in danger. This is bad judgment. Was it so the baby could be born in Alaska and not Texas? They are affiliated with the Alaska Independent Party. Maybe for her it’s Alaska First, no matter what.

Varena

Someone may have said this already, I simply don’t have it in me to read ALL of these comments. All of these Pro-Lifers go on and on about having the baby and putting it up for adoption rather then killing it. Ok, in a perfect world that’d be great idea. The problem with that is this is not a perfect world. There are hundreds of thousands of children in the system that no one is adopting. Why doesn’t everyone start sexual education at a MUCH younger age then the junior year health class that you have to have a parent’s permission for and maybe kids will make smarter choices. ie not have sex or be smart enough to use all forms of birthcontrol. Kids are going to have sex, it’s a fact of life. With education and decent health care maybe there wont be an oops.. and maybe then we wont have a need for abortion. Find a way to feed and care for all the starving, abused, neglected children in all the world, give them homes and love… I’ll change sides and support your “pro-life” movement. Until then the fewer babies born in this world the less suffering.

Anonymous

Ralph,Irene: did you ever hear of the expression “Young and Dumb?” describes you to a tee. I’m no Sarah Palin fan, and I disagree with nearly every policiy she espouses but to get on her for getting pregnant in her 40’s is just the height of stupidity.In cae you haven’t noticed, she looks to be in better shape than 95% of the country. I doubt either of you can do 1/10th the physical things she can. Fact: After 40 your chances of having a child with DS becomes 1 in 18. HOWEVER 80% of the children born with DS are born to mothers under the age of 35. So cut the “she’s too old, it’s her fault Trig has DS” garbage.

Trig Wasn’t Her Choice

In my opinion none of the facts line up. I’m going to agree with those evil bloggers here. Sarah Palin is probably not Trig’s mother.Sarah Palin would’ve never made the call on keeping trig because she was never pregnant with Trig. At no point did she show she was actually pregnant, at no point, while they hid her daughter due to mono, did she ever show she was truly pregnant.Sarah Palin is probably a super mom, willing to take her child’s child as her own, but Sarah Palin is not Trig’s biological mom.

CarlinAustin

Tim, you know better than to say “to have a Down Child.” People with Down syndrome are people first, and your term demeans them. Ms Palin is a walking advertisement for the fact that if she gets elected and becomes president–which is highly likely given McCain’s age and health–she will act to eliminate the rights of women to make their own decision about whether to carry a pregnancy to term. That is the only relevance that baby Trig holds in this campaign.Ms Palin’s choice was to bear a child with Down syndrome. The choice she has made for her daughter is to become a parent and a wife at the age of 17. These are her choices. But when we are in danger of electing a person who believes that her choices are best for everyone, we should seriously consider if we want her hands on our bodies.I am the father of a child with Down syndrome. He is the joy of our lives, but let me be clear: our choice is not one everyone would, or even should, make. All I ask is that if you’re pregnant and receive this diagnosis, please make sure you understand all the possibilities people with Down syndrome have today. Don’t make an uninformed choice.But Governor Palin, do not presume to think that you could make the choice for me and my family, either.

mkevinf

How does a person who is adamantly pro-life – a person who opposes abortion on all grounds – how does that person make a “choice” to carry a pregnancy to term? Are we to understand that Sarah Palin considered abortion and rejected it? Because, that is the only way choice comes into the picture. If Palin is going to be lauded for making a choice, then that is an implicit nod to the validity of the pro-choice movement that women should have the choice about carrying a pregnancy to term.

Anonymous

Of course Pallin can keep the baby; she makes a heafty salary and has all the resources at her finger tips to help that child.Not just money, she has a built in wet-nurse. How convenient.

dcredhead

Typical — Always “pro life” until birth. Sarah Palin cut funding to shelters who housed teen mothers. Wow. That’s so compassionate. I find it startling and grossly offensive that the far right is so adamantly pro life until birth. You can’t have it both ways. And you can’t use a disabled / mentally challenged baby as a political prop, which is EXACTLY what the GOP is doing.Shame on you!

Jim

There is one element of abortion that must be included if abortion is going to be discussed. The rich have abortions that are not recorded by family doctors or doctors for hire. The rich can afford to send their little darlings off to unknown locations and silently avoid the abortion skirmish. Many of these rich people publicly denounce abortion while secretly allowing their precious little daughters to have abortions performed on them. Let’s stop being hypocritical against the poor who cannot get an abortion without exposing themselves because of the lack of money while refusing to acknowledge that the rich have been aborting babies without repercussions.

Zina

I agreed with Tina. A child is a blessing not a thing that can just be passed on to someone else so you can pursue a polictical career. There are many women out there who are struggling with conception and here is a women who has FIVE children and they are obviously not the most important thing in her life. Its completely selfish.

Anonymous

While we’re on the subject of hypocrisy, let’s not forget that there is a male in the picture, and he certainly should be taking responsibility for where his sperm goes. Seems to me that the two of them had enough money to buy at least one condom. Ooh, why not spring for a contraceptive sponge, too?Maybe he wanted to knock up the governor’s daughter. Must be a real talking point with his hockey buddies.”Pull and pray” isn’t contraception either.

Anonymous

anon 8:34- the quality of the video was awful and it is so easy to “edit”. Sorry- show me quotes in print from a reputable source, not youtube. trust me- I know video editing (loved the one saying Obama has std’s- )

Laura

I’m sorry Tim but I take issue with your constant use the word “choice” and how they “chose not to abort their son”. Palin is pro-life and anti-abortion so to say she “CHOSE” to have a child with a disability is misleading. Did Palin’s pro-life beliefs really allow her to even make a choice? Are we to believe that Palin and her husband actually sat down and had a conversation about keeping or terminating the pregnancy and they actually made a choice? It seems to me that an anti-abortion, pro-lifer wouldn’t make a choice; the choice is already made for them. And if they actually did have such a conversation and did weigh the options of a choice, then she should be happy she lives in a country where she was able to make that choice and the choice was up to her, not the government. Oh, and for the record, I too am the parent of a specials needs child. If Palin wants to campaign for rights for the disabled, I’m all for it but the Republication party must stop using her son’s disability as a campaign talking point. I thought family members were off-limits. Hypocrits!

I love the fact that your family has always been so involved with special needs children. Yes, Sarah Palin made the choice to have this baby. That is the critical word CHOICE. She had the resources and they may have talked as a family; however, given her stance on the issue-probably not. Oh, by the way – I thought the decision to have a Down’s Syndrome child meant that you accepted all parts of this child. I guess it’s different if you are rich and can hand him off to your children or a nanny. I guess this makes me pretty judgmental; but it is hard not to be. Sarah chose to have this child but it seems her ambition lets her choose to have others care for him. I know that this would not be the same case if it were Todd Palin that were chosen for the candidate and that people would say this was a sexist attitude. But, moms are traditionally the caregivers. I would have a problem with him as a VP candidate – because they chose to have this child. He needs special attention – not part time attention.

Israel Groveman

I have a friend who was told early in her pregnancy that her child would have Down’s Syndrome. She went ahead with the baby and it was perfectly normal, healthy, smart, and beautiful without even a hint of Down’s.Liberals will often condemn conservatives who advocate the death penalty for people who have raped, murdered, and worse – and they cite the possibility of murdering an innocent as a major reason for their objection. In this case we have abortion, a valiantly defended “liberal right,” and we have a case where the doctor was simply wrong. The shoe is on the other foot in this case, although it be a twisted foot, since we are talking about a truly innocent baby vs. a situation involving a horrendous crime. The existence of a child alone should be enough of an argument not to murder it, regardless of the nature of the child. Anything different, any small deviation or deterrence from this rule, is exactly what drove the Nazis.

BZK

like several posts that pointed out that S Palin indeed did make a choice for having her baby, I too am confused about the “choice” she made. I respect her decision, but I don’t understand why she went through that choice since she is a fervent pro-life advocate. In addition, considering that there is a risk of miscarriage when you undergo an amniocentesis, then why in the first place did she have an amnio? does this mean that there are some birth defects for which she was wiling to terminate her pregnancy?

gromet

Timothy Shriver is right on target. Ms Palin has chosen to allow the child to live, and has chosen a life with the child that is going to be more difficult and yet more blessed. There is no doubt that this will inspire many people who want to see character on the podium. Mr Shriver understands that Palin’s family IS Palin’s message. WHat a breath of fresh and clean air.

Alex

fr Anonymous:>…Featuring an interview with Jill Stanek, “Kill and Destroy” explores Barack Hussein Obama’s support of infanticide in Illinois, an alarming decision that was opposed by every Democrat and Republican in the U.S. Senate….Ms. Stanek’s credibility has been called into SERIOUS question, as she did NOT immediately report what she “saw” to a supervisor.Also, youtube is like the enquirer. You can make up anything and submit it. Therefore, youtube’s credibility is down the tubes, just like ms. stanek’s.

stevie57

It’s not about having the baby or not having the baby…it’s about caring for the baby (yourself), making sure that you have the time to put in the extra stimulation which will help a very special child attain their full potential, and supporting (with more than words) your 17 year old daughter who is in a challenging situation.These are the family values that are important. Any old body can produce a child; it’s what you do after that reveals your true measure as a mother.Most pragmatic and caring parents would have tried to cut back on work to help a 4 month old special needs infant and a 17 year old in trouble.Sarah Palin has failed spectacularly to put her family first.

speakupny

I’m having a hard time believing Gov. Palin really wanted this child. She returns to work 3 days after giving birth. In addition there has not been one photograph of her cradling this child in her arms. The baby is always in the arms of one of the two oldest daughters. She has never been seen on video with the child in her arms and then passing her son to one of her daughters or even the husband. So does she really want to care for a sick child? And did the daughter decide to have her own baby since she is always taking care of her brother?

bjanna1

Why is it that those who are anti-choice insist that those who are pro-choice oppose life?Why is it that so many self-professed “pro-life” people feel championed by a woman who felt that it was more important to give a speech in Texas than see a doctor when she began to leak amniotic fluid and have contractions. Not only that, but after her speech, instead of checking into a hospital in Texas, she chose to take a 2 flights home to Alaska, putting her life and the life of her unborn fetus in danger. A speech…a SPEECH!!!…was more important than the health and well-being of Trig, more important than living and mothering her other children.Is this the stuff that “The Culture of Life” is made of?

Anonymous

Anon 10:12- And what you conveniently left out was the real reasons Obama didn’t like those bills. They were bills defining a fetus as a person with full rights no matter if the fetus was “previable”. Essentially it was an anti-choice bill slathered over with a medley of words to provide a smoke screen. Fact check, while not denying Obama ‘s fudging the reasons for his vote also concluded:”Number one, whenever we define a previable fetus as a person that is protected by the equal protection clause or the other elements in the Constitution, what we’re really saying is, in fact, that they are persons that are entitled to the kinds of protections that would be provided to a – a child, a nine-month-old – child that was delivered to term. That determination then, essentially, if it was accepted by a court, would forbid abortions to take place.” and “Obama’s critics are free to speculate on his motives for voting against the bills, and postulate a lack of concern for babies’ welfare. But his stated reasons for opposing “born-alive” bills have to do with preserving abortion rights, a position he is known to support and has never hidden.”But then anti-abortionists have never been known to show self-restraint when it comes to the choices of others.

starver

Lots of people choose to have children with Down’s Syndrome. Among all congenital illnesses Down’s is a relatively inexpensive defect. If parents think they are affluent enough, by and large they do have the child (regardless of the ailments). By all accounts Ms. Palin is affluent enough. The question is whether you choose life when options are rather limited or difficult enough.

Mar

To BZK and others who question why the Palins went through amnio and why, if she’s pro-life, she “chose” to have Trig:I was 41 when my daughter was born. I had amnio so that we would know in advance if there were any problems. The chances of miscarriage during amnio done by a competent physician are miniscule. To us, this tiny, tiny, tiny risk was outweighed by having advance knowledge of problems with our baby. If she had had any special medical issues of any kind, we could have had the correct medical personnel lined up in advance. We would have also had the opportunity to mentally prepare ourselves for a different, although no less valuable, child than we initially anticipated. I personally know two people who had Down’s Syndrome children and did not know until the baby was born. The parents have all said that they love their daughters, rejoice in their existence, and would not have aborted even if they had known in advance. However, they all wish they had known because the shock in the delivery room and, frankly, the attitude of the nurses and doctors did temporarily dampen their joy in their daughters’ births. As far as Governor Palin “choosing” to have her son, that is terminology that the PRESS uses. I have not seen the Governor and her husband using that term.

please

Why is the kid always sleeping? Who else finds it odd? Are they sedatiing him?Why is it so noble that she chose to give birth to a child with down syndrome? Hundreds of every day, even pro-choice, people do every day.

Jack

Is it sexism to ask the question? “America First” or “Family First” Which will it be? Governor Palin may be able to take her baby to work with her and nurse during a meeting as Governor of Alaska – a state with a population of 626,000 people. It is a different story being the VP of the United States. I think a woman with children is certainly capable of being the VP or president of the US, but I do question the judgment and “family first” priority of a new mother with a newborn having special needs.Her husband, Todd, is employed by BP as an oil field operator and works in Alaska’s Northslope oil fields nearly 1300 miles away from the Governor’s mansion in Juneau, AK. I hardly think he is the one to stay at home with the kids when they are sick or take the the day off for medical appointments. The Alaska media had this to say:Mr. Palin goes back to PrudhoeANCHORAGE, Alaska — A decision by Alaska’s first family is raising concerns about a possible conflict of interest involving Gov. Sarah Palin and the oil industry.The governor’s husband, Todd Palin, is back on BP’s payroll. Gov. Palin says his return will not influence her decisions involving the oil industry, but one former lawmaker who wrote an ethics guideline for the administration believes it’s a bad move at the wrong time.”You know, we’ve never hidden the fact that Todd had a job and he’s created to work,” said the governor. “He wants to keep working…”

Marc Edward

Just struck me – if Palin would never have chosen to abort a child with Downs, why did she get tested for Downs in the first place? It’s certainly optional. Isn’t that the amnio, where they stick the giant needle into you and there is a small chance of it causing fetal death? Even if there is only a 1% chance of causing fetal death why do the test when the results are meaningless to your decisions?The details of this story keep not adding up.

Anonymous

“Friend: Let’s see … I don’t have the address on me. A friend of mine called from the abortion clinic and her baby was born alive.”You know, not that I question things like this have happened but I gotta say, this sounds so weird. a woman goes to an abortion clinic to have a procedure, gives birth, demands help, and even thought the Born Alive act has passed, is denied that help? the autopsy report said “However, the report found no air or excessive fluid in the lungs, nor was there air or fluid in the stomach. Thus, the report concluded “forensically” there was no evidence the fetus was born alive.”Yet pro-lifers will do anything they can to spin this. And I am someone who believes that 21 weeks is too far along to allow an abortion but i put the blame on the mother. Where’s her responsibility? Let’s not canonize her just yet.

Concerned The Christian Now Liberated

Pontificator, Pontificator, Pontificator,And the pontificating goes on and on!!!!

ladylaughs

Early in the posts there’s one that says ‘we have a case where the doctor was simply wrong’. My story is a version of that.

I’m Laughing Too

LadyLaughs-The same thing happened to me.I remember when I was told I should abort my first pregnancy because my child would be hopelessly retarded- never gain bowel control or be able to feed himself- I was devastated.I was told to go home, tell my husband, and then call to arrange the abortion. I remember when I got home- I was trying to make a cup of tea and I was crying so hard the stove’s burner was sending up steam from my tears.I decided to carry my child. He is thirty- two years old and a sucessful novelist.

Jamie

I advise knowing what your talking about before you write a comment on here….

they’re not little forever

My 9 year old son was getting the crap beaten out of him by his 13 year old cousin (who has Down’s and is fairly significantly impaired. As in, he’ll always need someone to take care of him, maybe he’ll be able to live in a group home but probably won’t be employable). Why? Because B’s Mom and Dad won’t protect the smaller kids from B. Instead MY kid was told that he has to put up with it, B is “special”, and we have to make allowances.Like hell. B is bigger, stronger and evidently entitled to do as he pleases. So my son no longer sees his cousin, as the adults in that household feel that other’s safety isn’t that important. Nor do they respect my rules in my home and refuse to monitor their child. At this point, it’s a matter of time before a child gets badly hurt.Kids with Down’s reach puberty, with all the same troubles of self-control and sexuality. More often than not, they’re the ones who are taken advantage of by others. But don’t for one minute think that just because a child has Down’s makes them incapable of violence or hurting others. It’s just not the case, and no amount of wishing makes it true.So I certainly hope that those of you who do have children with Down’s syndrome are not doing them the disservice of not teaching them self-restraint. I fear it’s a matter of time before B really, really hurts a child. As in causes brain damage–as B has a ‘thing’ for that dreadful televised ‘wrestling’ as entertainment, and no one regularly telling him he can’t do that. I’d love to burn all those stupid tapes, they keep popping them in to keep him quiet…until the screams of pain and tears interrupt them.

RK

Mr. ShriverIf we’re to believe that keeping this child was a morally courageous act, why not ask the question: Why in the world did Sarah Palin cover up her pregnancy? Her act of keeping that pregnancy a secret is inconsistent with your assumptions about her motivations. Someone that truly celebrates life should have no problem sharing their pregnancy with their co-workers, and in Palin’s case, the people that she served as governer.Since the campaigns presumably won’t answer the question, I’ll speculate on an answer.Palin wanted to preserve the possibililty of aborting this child, and probably seriously considered it up through the 7th month of her pregnancy (3rd trimester) when she finally went public. If correct she’s really not the pro-life hero you are painting her to be.

Anonymous

Thanks, Timothy, for at least holding out the hope of reconciliation.

sparrow

“Unless you are the parent/sibling of a child with DS, find another panel to post your negative comments on. Stick to a subject that you actually know about.”I respect your decision to have your child. I think anyone who has a child with ds deserves nothing but respect for their dedication and courage to these very special people. But you also need to understand that Sara Palin is not making a point for your child. She is trying to score political points by using Trig’s birth to illustrate what a fine, righteous, upstanding model of family values she is. And I say she’s full of crap. 3 days old and she goes back to work? He’s 5 months old and she is McCain’s running mate? this isn’t about whether she can be veeep or President. this is about whether a woman who bears 5 children should be so irresponsible as to take on this kind of job at their expense. Think she hasn’t literally thrown her kids to the wolves? How many 17 year old unmarried pregnant girls who are the daughters of the poster girl for the religious right would care to have their pregnancy become a subject of national discussion and even ridicule? The girl is a 17 year old child. Yet Sara Palin is a great believer in abstinence only sex education- which is no sex education at all. This is the “family values” person you so admire? The person who decided if kids wouldn’t have sex if they didn’t know about condoms and were told to abstain, wins the moron of the century award.Mary- you need to stop assuming that Liberals think Trig should have been aborted. They don’t. they think that Sara’s choice to keep him is a choice all women are entitled to, one way or another. You have plenty of other talking points you could use, but lies shouldn’t be one of them.

jkoch

LadyLaughs,Maybe you beat the odds. Maybe the 1976 diagnosis was flawed due to lack of adequate technology or skill. But don’t presume that the Lord will spare older (or younger) couples the hazard of birth with severe disorders. Don’t presume that to raise a child with severe autism or retardation is not severely taxing, or that the community will lighten the burden, or that you or I should dictate how a couple makes their decisions. In “olden times” the common, if usually unrecorded, solution was to expose, abandon, or destroy after birth. There was no charity towards the “possessed” or “unclean.”

spiderman2

“Sarah Palin should concentrate on caring for her children, especially Trig, so say a lot of entlightened pro-abortion women.”That should be the “normal thing” to do but those saying that are NOT NORMAL. Sarah has a greater job of teaching these pro-abortion witches to end their witchcraft.

Nancy

Choose life, if you can afford to. As Governor of Alaska, Sarah Palin line-item vetoed money for teen mothers who didn’t have families to help them carry their children to term–funding for housing and help to see them through their pregnancies and the important early days of their babies lives. We can’t all have families that provide that for us. Where was Sarah Palin when these teen-aged girls needed her help to choose life? On the other side of a red pen.

These are the good old days

You just wait, America.1972- the Supreme Court, in Eisenstadt v. Baird, grants unmarried couples the constitutional right to use birth control. 1965- the United States Supreme Court issues Griswold v. Connecticut. For the first time, married couples have the constitutional right to use contraception. 1936- Margaret Sanger orders pessaries (diaphragms) from a Japanese doctor. The U.S. government confiscates the shipment of diaphragms. After a long court battle, the Court eventually dismisses the charges. 1916- Margaret Sanger opens the first birth control clinic. She is promptly arrested and jailed on obscenity charges.

Kwaayesnama

Sarah Pahin uses poor judgment and the GOP makes her out to be a hero!

dayton

This article and comments focus on side issues. Who are WE to decide whether to bring a child into this cruel world knowing that the child will be ill-equipped to deal with the struggles of the world. In fact, “normal” people themselves have enough of a challenge. The fact that parents find their children with Down’s syndrome the “light of their lives” is of course obvious, but it is incredibly selfish and narcissistic as well. We had a Down’s syndrome scare during our pregnancy (thankfully it was a false alarm) and that was an incredibly difficult moment for us. My wife and I decided that if the diagnosis was confirmed, we would abort the child in the interest of the precious child and not wanting the child to suffer. It had nothing to do with us “looking down” on Down’s syndrome children or anything like that.

ladylaughs

Thanks ‘I’m laughing too’! Aren’t we lucky?!To JKoch – I didn’t intend to make any such presumptions…..

oberst

nice prospective moms do not take long extended flight when the water broke, they go to emergency room when they are out of town.

ladylaughs

Thanks ‘I’m laughing too’! Aren’t we lucky?!To JKoch – I didn’t intend to make any such presumptions…..

DH

Mark from Australia, I am a Pro-Choice person and you made the “right” choice in keeping your DS daughter. I just recently had a child and I can see why any child should be given every opportunity to grow up and be loved. I, too, am not too religious because it tends to cloud the “Common Sense” in me sometimes, but I truly believe in the good of all human beings and respect anyone’s choices in life. The people who made you and your wife feel irresponsible for raising your daughter had no right because it is your choice with no regrets. There are extremists everywhere, they just sometimes take the form of your neighbors or follow a particular political party. Stay strong and continue doing what you do best, which is watching your daughter “getting her breakfast ready and packing her bags to school, and looking forward to the day ahead”.

stanley dailey

thank you sally; you have done what we conervatives couldn’t have done in ten years in redundant preaching to the choir. you have energized us and opened our eyes to what sexism really looks like. so many fence sitting reps. are now ready to move. thank you for waking a “sleeping giant.” and now you have to keep talking trash, you can’t help it. you are the racoon whose arm is stuck in the milk bottle because he won’t let go of the egg. again thank you. stan and sally dailey

ORLLY?

“What if Trig were to trigger a new way of thinking on both sides of the political spectrum? A middle ground could emerge that embraces our shared values rather than emphasizing our differences. The two parties could agree that we should do everything we can to choose life while doing nothing to make the choosing illegal.”Shriver is apparently new to the abortion debate. The above is a fairly accurate description of the pro-choice position. Welcome!

Anonymous

spiderman2:” That should be the “normal thing” to do but those saying that are NOT NORMAL. Sarah has a greater job of teaching these pro-abortion witches to end their witchcraft.”Can you really be this much of a knuckledragger and still walk upright? Honestly, I’d be terrified to live in the same world you do. Where is it? some broken down shack in the Ozarks with no one around for miles? Who are you? Pumpkinhead? The Pastor of the Church of the Eternal Fright?sweetie- come out from under the bed and look around. Get a grip. Get a wife. Get laid.

Observer

What about assuming responsibility for getting pregnant at an age that greatly increases the chances of having a child afflicted with Down’s? Am glad she had Trig, but frankly she should not have been pregnant at 44.

Jeffrey

Another idiotic headline: “Choosing Down Syndrome”Who, exactly, has “chosen” Down Syndrome?Fact: Sarah Palin chose to have a baby.Fact: Sarah Palin’s baby has Down Syndrome.Fact: Neither Sarah Palin nor her baby chose Down Syndrome.Stick to the facts.

Athena

To step outside of the abortion thing for a moment… Why did they have a four-month-old baby in a loud, bright environment all evening? Couldn’t they find a sitter? From what I understand, DS babies are particularly sensitive to stimuli like that. Why were they passing the baby from person to person like a hot potato? The person that held the baby longest was Cindy McCain. The whole thing just looked somewhat off to me. Also, Gov. Palin cut $5M from the Special Ed budget in 2007 and 2008, as well as cutting programs to help teen mothers. Ironic.

Baby Humans

If you were aborted you would not have written this column. That is something to think about for all those who have made their careers more important than the life of their infants. That is something to think about for all those who have sacrificed their infants on the alter of pleasure or their own self interest.

Cat

Athena,Infants, babies and toddlers with Down Syndrome need constant, excessive you could almost say, stimulation – visual, auditory, intellectual, tactile. They are slower to react than ‘normal’ infants. What the family was doing was just what the doctor – or rather educators -ordered: maximum contact, a maximum number of ‘interventionists’ – her family.I’m not sure but I think Cindy McCain trained as a special ed teacher, also their daughter Bridget has, I believe, special needs as well.Trig is a lovely baby. I was very moved when I saw how his sister (the littlest one, I don’t know her name) was tenderly giving him a ‘wash and brush-up’. Trig appears to be the apple of her eye as well.

Athena

Oh, okay. Thanks for letting me know. I don’t have any experience with DS kids, so I didn’t realize it. I just figured that it was a bright, noisy environment that would be bad for him. As for the “wash and brush up”, that was kinda gross, but totally understandable for a seven-year-old.

Michael

We will all have “Down’ Syndrome if Obama is elected!”Down” On America

prince habalaba ding dong

i think your ending was excelent how you said couples should have the choice, but the best choice is life..great! the other great choice is Lovin Scoopful’s caramel chocolate heaven!! im eating some right now, outstanding! i have to admit though, the article was better…in a sense

Trig Simon

I am 64 years old, and have always been proud of the name my mom gave me.I have only heard of one other Trig in my whole lifetime. Trig Singer, big movie cameraman.Sorry I don’t have any arguments to post.

pontificator

CONCERNED THE CHRISTIAN NOW LIBERATED – you’re just jealous of my handle. Besides, you’re not the only one that’s entitled to bore people to death with their opinions. BTW, It must be more than a little irksome to have a Pentacostal fundamentalist as the VP of your preferred party! I sense some cognitive dissonance exuding from your ‘virtual’ pores.So who do you want like as the potential leader of the Free World? A fundamentalist creationist with no real experience, or Joe Biden – vastly experienced in real world politics but a pro-choice Catholic. Not to worry – Obama/Biden will gladly take your vote…..

Michael D. Houst

Everyone of these Right-to-Lifers/Anti-abortionists is a Hypocrite! They are all anti-humanitarians. Only 53,000 children are adopted from foster care each year. 129,000 are left behind without families!!! When you have zero left behind each year, then you can start preaching about the sanctity of life. Until then, shut the heck up.

Greg

To Marc Edward who questioned why have the test…My wife is giving birth in 1 month, we did not ask for the test they just did it. If any “abnormalities” were found we would have used the information to educate ourselves and be better prepared to care for him. With 90% of pregnancies being terminated in that situation, women like my wife and Sarah Palin are rare. Believe me, I know.

Gimme A Break

Life is not the best choice, even in Trig’s case. It’s really sad, looking at that baby you could tell it’s already tortured. The future for that person is bleak, while it may be a cute baby now, it is slowly growing into a pathetic, tortured adult that will spend the rest of it’s time on earth in a genetic prison cell hell.

Jessica

you asked …”couldn’t Republicans make good on the pro-life rhetoric through a serious effort to support the needs of vulnerable children once they’re alive – by supporting child care, parent support, and community building?”Gov. Palin cut funding to programs that specifically provided resources to teenage mothers.She has put her son Trig out there as an example of why she can support special needs funding, but why isn’t her daughter’s situation as compelling? And why can she introduce her family into the national platform of issues when it is convenient and say ‘off limits’ or ‘private family matter’ when it suits the party?She failed as a mother. Not because her sweet, beautiful young daughter is pregnant, but because she shoved her children onto a national stage when they needed her most. Trig will never know or understand that he is being used as a pawn in a political/personal issue…that’s terrible.

Anonymous

Governor Palin did not choose Down Syndrome (as the title on the main page suggests). She chose to love her child with Down Syndrome and grant it the gift of life that God had first given that child. She did not misuse her power as its mother to rob that child of God’s gift. Pro-abortionists may find that logic bizarre. Loving one’s child, even an imperfect child, used to be considered quite normal not long ago. The science that makes it possible to detect genetic disorders in the unborn is very recent.

Anonymous

Senators Obama and Biden introduced their families on national stage too. In fact their family members talked of the candidates sharing very personal details of their family lives. Nobody complained then.Why this double standard?Be fair to all candidates.

bkp

If by way of some “Twilight Zone” scenario, every human being were to suddenly blink out of existence except for one, and that person had Down syndrome, that person would be the most intelligent being in at least the entire solar system. And the difference between that person’s intelligence and that of the next most intelligent would be a vast gulf the size of the diameter of the universe. That anyone would even conceive of aborting a baby because of Down syndrome is simply illogical, baffling, and monstrous. Is having a less intelligent, less independent child really such a burden? You don’t even need to drag religion into this to see this is ridiculous. But absurdity seems to be the goal of modern humans.

Anonymous

All who suggest a mother has no right to bring an imperfect child into the world are duly reminded to reflect about the Nazi regime and master race theories where only the perfect have a right to life.

Anonymous

Jessica, Governor Palin went to work as a Governor WITH her child. Infants sleep most of the time and their needs are very basic. A few minutes of interruption once in a while to take care of those needs is all the attention they need from their mother. They feel safe and happy when their mother is around.You do millions of working mothers a disfavor with your post.

mama of many

Someone asked why Trig was always sleeping and suggested that they were drugging him (with Benadryl?). May I suggest that perhaps, Trig was not always sleeping but just appear to be sleeping. For his age and due to his Down’s Syndrome he likely has very floppy muscle tone and is not yet able to hold up his own head yet or even intentionally grasp objects yet. He is in a sense still very much like a newborn, so is held like a newborn might be: in a lying down position. DS babies will eventually achieve nearly all the same milestones as non-DS children just at a much later rate than you might expect for their age and size.Also, maybe he really does just sleep a lot still as well.

Marc Edward

I ask again – why did Sarah Palin get tested for Down’s if she wasn’t going to do anything with the information. I thought my kids had been tested for Downs when my wife was pregnant, but she reminded me that we had forgone that test because it was very invasive and carried a risk of miscarriageIf the test carries no benifit, why get tested at all? Amnio uses a large frigging needle right into the abnomen! Why drive to the doctor, fork over money, sit around a waiting room, and get a painful test if the results will make no difference? It doesn’t add up, IMO.

Cat

Hello Marc Edward, I don’t get it: you hate people with Down Syndrome, you are not religious and yet you hang around this thread posting over and over. Are you a professional troll? Or is this a I-Post-Therefore-I-Am issue. I’d love to know what your interest is.

Marc Edward

Cat writes Yeah, I can see why you don’t get it if you think I hate anybody, let alone hate people with Downs. Anger and hatred are weaknesses that enslave people and I have for years always tried to stay away from both.”you are not religious”I don’t go to church, nor do I belong to an organized religion. That simply means I don’t trust man-made institutions. Institutions tend to put self preservation above all (see how the Catholic Church has handled the victims of sex abuse). Doesn’t mean I don’t believe in God, its more like I don’t believe that I can understand that much about God, same way a flea on my cat doesn’t understand how a car works.”and yet you hang around this thread posting over and over. Are you a professional troll? Or is this a I-Post-Therefore-I-Am issue. I’d love to know what your interest is.”Truth, beauty and the American way.Sorry – should I just shutup and go away?

Anonymous

Overturning Roe vs Wade merely returns the law pertaining to abortion back to the states. It does not abolish the possibility of legal abortions altogether.The law, not being a mandate to abort, is not the real problem. The attitude towards abortion is. When a growing child in the womb has been dehumanized, by calling it a clump of cells or a parasite, abortion becomes easy, devoid of moral conflict. Since the pregnant woman does not get to see the “clump of cells” or “parasite” that so closely resembles a baby, she is free to deny that it ever was an innocent, defenseless growing child whose life was snuffed out against its will.

BoldHawk

A new take on life before conception:There is an assumption that ‘human life’ is the only valuable life that must be preserved. This is NOT TRUE. Most of those who believe that, have a biblical foundation, which is itself a misinterpretation of the scriptures (not to mention the political reasons why they’ve been altered from their originals by political rules). They’ve gone as far as to attribute life to the fetus. Why not go back further? What about the life of the soul before he joins the fetus? What of the soul who is forced to enter a body he would have not chosen by its own volition? Insisting on preserving a body, for the sake of preservation, and “having a heart” is based on the individuals emotions needs, and not the needs of the soul they’re about to condemn. If one understand life on this side of humanity as well as on the other side of humanity, one would not be so quick to condemn a soul into a potential life of misery or poverty in human embodiment by forcing them to stay in the human body where the expected environment will have little or no survival support, when they wouldn’t have made that choice themselves. But the value of a human body is thought to be superior to the life of the soul who will inhabit it. Who more than the mother can sense the desire of her womb? A soul about to acquire a human body, has the right to receive all the tools that it will need to make a valuable contribution, else informed that the door they are considering to use to enter humanity is a dead end, and in their behalf the door will be closed. It’s a cruel penalty to force a soul into a body which has little or no chance to succeed, or starts with enough handicaps as to have his opportunities diminished by known difficulties, just to satisfy the hypocricy of the parents desire for off-spring, and their emotional comfort.

BoldHawk

A new take on life before conception:There is an assumption that ‘human life’ is the only valuable life that must be preserved. This is NOT TRUE. Most of those who believe that, have a biblical foundation, which is itself a misinterpretation of the scriptures (not to mention the political reasons why they’ve been altered from their originals by political rules). They’ve gone as far as to attribute life to the fetus. Why not go back further? What about the life of the soul before he joins the fetus? What of the soul who is forced to enter a body he would have not chosen by its own volition? Insisting on preserving a body, for the sake of preservation, and “having a heart” is based on the individuals emotions needs, and not the needs of the soul they’re about to condemn. If one understand life on this side of humanity as well as on the other side of humanity, one would not be so quick to condemn a soul into a potential life of misery or poverty in human embodiment by forcing them to stay in the human body where the expected environment will have little or no survival support, when they wouldn’t have made that choice themselves. But the value of a human body is thought to be superior to the life of the soul who will inhabit it. Who more than the mother can sense the desire of her womb? A soul about to acquire a human body, has the right to receive all the tools that it will need to make a valuable contribution, else informed that the door they are considering to use to enter humanity is a dead end, and in their behalf the door will be closed. It’s a cruel penalty to force a soul into a body which has little or no chance to succeed, or starts with enough handicaps as to have his opportunities diminished by known difficulties, just to satisfy the hypocrisy of the parents desire for off-spring, and their emotional comfort.

MARIA

“Overturning Roe vs Wade merely returns the law pertaining to abortion back to the states. It does not abolish the possibility of legal abortions altogether.The law.. is not the real problem.” Great! Then you won’t mind if we work as hard as we can and as long as we have to until Roe v Wade is overturned..

Anonymous

Boldhawk:So doeth evil rationalize itself and the devil present itself as the angel of light.

Sidney

Cat-Marc Edward has an insatiable desire to find some fault or transgression or out and out glaring flaw in the life of Sarah Palin.What a nincompoop..

Choiceisgood

I think it is wonderful that they had the baby, Trig. The Palins made a clear CHOICE to have the baby. For them it was not the only option. This makes their CHOICE even more beautiful, that while millions of babies don’t make it to this earth because of abortion, poor prenatal care, and a host of other reasons, they chose to create an environment where Trig would be celebrated. The Palins were not forced to keep Trig by a law that governed Sarah Palin’s body. I think the more education we do about the responsibilities that go along with sexual activity, the better. Why are the republicans all about choice in some areas (Schools, Choosing to drill in our virgin wildernesses) and not the basic control that people have over their own bodies?

Anonymous

Cat:Hello Marc Edward, I don’t get it: you hate people with Down Syndrome, you are not religious and yet you hang around this thread posting over and over. Are you a professional troll? Or is this a I-Post-Therefore-I-Am issue. I’d love to know what your interest is.September 5, 2008 6:22 PM_______________________________________________Marc Edward:Are the gospals the words of God-on-Earth, or just the collected wisdom of the many who transcribed the old notes and diaries over the centuries? I dunno._________________________________________________Elsewhere on this forum Marc Edward claimed to be a Jew who attends a Mosque and feels more at home in a Mosque than a Christian Church. The above lines about the New Testament is a typical Muslim take – that the Christians got their Scripture wrong and it is unreliable because it was copied several times etc.Marc Edward is also strongly pro-abortion. He claimed to have gone twice to the abortion clinic accompanying a woman to give her moral support. Draw your own conclusions.

Jeanne

“Life is not the best choice, even in Trig’s case. It’s really sad, looking at that baby you could tell it’s already tortured. The future for that person is bleak, while it may be a cute baby now, it is slowly growing into a pathetic, tortured adult that will spend the rest of it’s time on earth in a genetic prison cell hell”I’m amazed by these views…obviously you have never been around people with Down’s Syndrome. So where do you draw the line? Aren’t alcoholics and drug users terrible burdens and drains on society? Aren’t obese people with ADHD in a genetic prison cell hell? Tell me where the cutoff is for allowing life. Is it brain centric? What do we do with people that have have their mental capacity obliterated in car accidents? What is considered perfect and what is not?

2006pavelo

below are few thoughts I and my wife wrote down after watching Ms Palin speech. I think they are concerning.5 month old baby belongs neither in the audience nor on stage, surrounded by loud screaming and flashing lights, at a gathering of thousands. Trig Palin was born with Down syndrome. According to NADS (National Association for Down Syndrome) “Many children with Down syndrome have health complications beyond the usual childhood illnesses… [they] have a higher incidence of infection, respiratory, vision and hearing problems as well as thyroid and other medical conditions”.Perhaps Trig Palin suffers from none of these ailments, but any infant’s high susceptibility to infection might be reason enough for the parents to avoid subjecting him to large crowds. Would it not have been wiser if baby Trig made his appearance in the convention hall via satellite from a hotel room in care of a family member or a baby-sitter?Trig Palin is obviously a very quiet child. He does not scream or struggle the way other infants his age might have done. Down Syndrome genotype affects a toddler’s response threshold and intensity (1). Because of a muted response to stimuli, infants with Down syndrome can appear less volatile and fearful than other babies, and often exhibit less anxiety upon being separated from their mothers (1). Baby Trig’s inability to express the level of discomfort and anxiety he is experiencing seems to have made him an ideal political prop for his parents.Governor Palin would like us to entrust her with the welfare of all the children in this country. Yet in caring for her own baby, she showed an alarming lack of judgment.Dr. Pavel Osten and Julia KuhlReference:

Anonymous

2006pavelo:It is somewhat amusing to read the comments of the self-righteous giving a mother of five advice regarding her own child.I have reason to believe that Governor Palin’s role, should she be elected VP, is not to give mothering advice to parents of children with Down Syndrome.If you are a Democrat who would never consider voting for Governor Palin, why not admit that instead of this tedious and ludicrous self-righteous comment about how a mother of five should care for her child? Children are in the habit of going everywhere with their parents. As long as they feel safe and in physical proximity to their family, they have no difficulty coping with any situation. For a child everything they experience is new, and they are usually excited about it or are in their own little world oblivious to the outside world. Trig it seems slept through the whole thing. As a four month old DS child it might not be unusual at all.

common sense

Anonymous posters need to find the courage and consideration to adopt a posting handle – posting the way you do has all the earmarks of a stealth attack. This is not worthy of adults with opinions. Hopefully you are not children. Get a name, or keep the hell off the boards. I personally won’t read or respond to any post that doesn’t have a posting name of some kind attached to it, and this probably goes for many other posters that visit these blogs often.

Cat

Marc Edward: OK, you’re a professional troll. I get it. Everybody has to make a living and it’s a free planet.About the comments about kids with Down’s having physical problems as well. Yeah, some do and some don’t. Our daughter is 23. When she was an infant and I (a working mother) had to find child-care while I was at work, I tried a few places which all refused her because, I was told by these “specialists”, all kids with Down’s had respiratory ailments and they couldn’t take her because she would give viruses to all the other babies.With regard to physical problems, our daughter has, in the past 23 years, had chicken pox, averaged one cold every 5 years (I average one every 5 weeks in the winter.. we live in a very cold climate) and broke her ankle when she was 10 on the nursery ski slope.The range of ability (and disability) with Down’s is far greater than in the ‘normal’ population and doctors who love to generalize are as guilty as anybody else of indulging their prejudices. Doctors, by the way (and I come from a family of doctors so this knowledge was a real eye-opener for me) frequently know next to nothing about Down Syndrome. They claim they are making progress when they find new ways to detect Down’s in the fetus. Like all parents of kids with Down’s are going to be thrilled. Doctors can be real hypocrites: they are presented with the ethical dilemma of justifying the termination of a fetus practically up until birth on the grounds that that fetus is “unworthy of life”. How can they, at the same time, recognize that that unworthy fetus can – if given proper support and therapy and unconditional love – achieve some small miracles.

Anonymous

2006pavelo:This little Mother Goose rhyme should explain how children experience the adult world —Pussy-cat, pussy-cat, where have you been?

Marc Edward

Cat writesMere disagreement doesn’t make a troll. I am not troubled by people disagreeing with me. One of my values is “Understanding”, which requires knowledge and experience. I enjoy having my preconceived ideas challanged. Sometimes argument changes my mind and sometimes it re-enforces my own idea. For example because of THIS THREAD I have been thinking a lot about the plight of teens and adults with Downs and what individuals, schools and local governments can do to make their lives better, partly from YOUR OWN POSTS. I’ve spoken with my wife, a high school teacher, about how she can set up an art class for differently abled people (she has two teens with Autism who love art but would thrive in their own class). She has spoken to adminstration people and they are interested in the idea. See, learning different points of view can change one’s outlook and behavior!”The range of ability (and disability) with Down’s is far greater than in the ‘normal’ population and doctors who love to generalize are as guilty as anybody else of indulging their prejudices.”Very true. One poster in one of these threads spoke of his depressed brother who had Downs. In my own life, at our local grocery store (Food Lion in Carrboro) there is a “checker” who obviously has Downs. She is cheerful, competant, and conversant. When checkout lines are long she is the first to open a new line. When the self-checkout is messed she’s among the first to come and help. Clearly she has had good support systems, one guesses partly from the church, as she always says goodbye by saying “Have a blessed day”Later Cat!

Cat

Paganplace: Last night there was a Fox News documentary (Greta von Susteren) about Palin. I don’t usually get my news from Fox, but I live in Europe and it is – with CNN – the only source of U.S. news in English.They showed excerpts from an old interview Palin (done I assume by an Alaskan TV program) gave in a late stage of her pregnancy (end of the winter I think). She was in her kitchen with her daughter Piper. The interviewer asked Palin if she knew what gender the baby was. She responded, with a bit of sadness and in a very quiet voice: “it’s a boy”. She was on the verge of tears which I can understand. We were unaware our daughter had Down Syndrome prior to her birth and the news is always shocking to a parent. As she and her husband knew before the birth, the ‘grieving process’ took place then. The process which – as Emily Perl Kingsley wrote – allows parents to realize that they thought they were taking a trip to Italy and – unexpectedly – they landed in Holland.Had I known prior to our daughter’s birth that she had Down’s and had I needed – like Palin – to take a long trip late in pregnancy and had my water broken – I would too have moved heaven and earth to get back home to give birth with my loved ones there to support me.

Cat

2006 Pavelo:You’ve been posting those comments by Dr. Pavel Osten and Julia Kuhl on a number of sites – almost like you’re a professional troll, too.I looked up Osten – he’s an associate professor of physiology and is in no way specialized in the development of people with Down Syndrome (infants included, though he seems to have done research on mouse models – anyone who adopts a mouse with trisomy 21 equivalent might want to consult him). Julia Kuhl? The only likely one I found on Google was a Russian-born woman (who, likewise, has no expertise in Down Syndrome).I have – unlike you I guess – travelled extensively in Eastern Europe (Osten’s a Czech and Kuhl’s a Russian). Eastern Europe’s record on disability rights is appalling. Plenty of Dying Rooms over there, just like in China – and you quote them?

Norrie Hoyt

Sarah Palin’s “pro-life”?Give me a break!Sarah Palin’s supporters tout Sarah’s moose hunting as a reason to vote for her.When the Vermont legislature was considering whether to establish the state’s first moose season a few years ago, the Speaker of the House noted that “Shooting a moose is like shooting a parked car.”So much for Sarah’s being a sportswoman and loving innocent life.

Anonymous

Moose is native to Northern cold climates where vegetables do not grow in plenty. Mankind has hunted moose since the stone age in those parts where moose is found.Chicken, cows, pigs etc are innocent animals too, but the vast majority of human beings eat them without feeling any sense of guilt.The Book of Genesis gives Christians a different attitude towards animals.Buddhists, Jains and Hindus believe in reincarnation, hence they view animals differently.Abortion is killing an innocent, voiceless, defenseless child growing in its mother’s womb. What could be more atrocious than that? Considering Buddhism does not even condone killing animals, there is no way on earth it would find abortion acceptable.

beaborted

People who choose to have babies when they know the child will have a horrible life are even worse than people who abort them. Why is it that people already here on earth, suffering thru the stupidity of human life, get to decide that another human will have to suffer along with them? It’s a selfish “choice” as far as I’m concerned, and deals with their desires to have someone to love or love them. Given the choice, knowing what I know about life on earth, I would NEVER choose to be here. Only a masochist would choose this.And face it… 99% of the humans on earth are here because someone was horny, not because someone wanted them here.If it’s really “god’s will” then I’m praying god will bless sara with a few more children with special needs.

Michael D. Houst

It can be argued that the best thing Adolph Hitler did for Germany was to kill all the institutionalized handicapped and insane. The point being that as these were “institutions” they were a drain on the resources of the entire state, rather than individual families.As for the physically and mentally handicapped from birth in the United States today, the government has gone a long way to divesting itself of their care by forced closure of state-run mental facilities. One the one hand, it has reduced costs to the entire country by handing the people back to their family’s responsibility, or their own recognizance. On the other hand, the country/states have increased the costs of care in an outpatient setting for all of these people.I applaud Sarah Palin for chosing life for her child, Trig. But I am 100% opposed to ANY imposition on the local, state or federal government being required to provide a single red cent of support or care for him. Your personal choice to have him, your personal responsibility to care for him. NOT MINE!!!

Progo35

As a person with a disability and disability advocate, I find many of the comments on this site depressing at best and infuriating at worst. NONE of you arguing that disabled fetuses should be aborted based on that disability have lived the life of an intellectually disabled person. How DARE you argue that such children are burdens to society that suffer throughout their lives without joy. All of you liberals who are preaching tolerance had better start practicing it in this matter-otherwise your no better than a bunch of neo-eugenicists. As for conservatives who do not want to provide the programs needd for such people-you are enabling the trains of thought that lead to the abortion of fetuses with disabilities, and you must take responsibility for laws and services protecting the handicapped if you want to decrease disability-based abortion in our current political/social climate.

beaborted

“I applaud Sarah Palin for chosing life for her child, Trig. But I am 100% opposed to ANY imposition on the local, state or federal government being required to provide a single red cent of support or care for him. Your personal choice to have him, your personal responsibility to care for him. NOT MINE!!!”Wishful thinking unfortunately. Reality is that when Ms HS Cheerleader and her macho impregnator exit the world, Trig will be left for some social program (that she voted against) to take care of.

Anonymous

Since some have put Governor Palin’s hunting moose on the same level as infanticide:”Noos” about mooseUnless people are advocating a strictly vegan diet with absolutely no animal products in their lives, including leather of any animal, we need to keep a realistic perspective on moose hunting and eating meat.From stone age mankind has hunted wild animals for food.Domestication of animals and cultivation of crops is a later development.In colder regions of the world (where moose is found for example) the reliance on meat as food is greater as vegetables are not easy to cultivate.Fast forward to today: think of how much excess meat is actually consumed; think of the way domesticated animals are kept and treated before they are slaughtered. Most are kept in closed enclosures, with overcrowding, no space even to turn their bodies, fed on diet that makes them grow and gain weight quickly with a high content of fat. The animal lives only for one purpose – to be food for the table of man.A moose shot in the wild is like a wild cow. Until it is shot it lives in freedom among other members of its species in the forest. Some moose get killed by wolves, others get shot by human beings. Until it is shot the moose enjoys a normal existence, unlike the domesticated animals grown for their meat.Moose meat is healthy; it has very little fat because the moose eat and live naturally in their natural habitatIt would be a disaster if moose hunting became a commercial venture for moose would disappear in no time.An occasional moose hunt by private persons would not cause an environmental disaster, since some moose do get killed by wolves.Domestication of moose is being tried without much success. Moose do not thrive when introduced into forests with warmer climates.

Anonymous

Suggested reading related to the subject:G.K. Chesterton. Eugenics and Other Evils Eugenics, like abortion, bases all its benefits on denying an entire class of humans their humanity. With eugenics it was the “unfit,” which usually meant the poor, the weak, or simply the ethnic-types who were just having too many children. With abortion, there is a perceived benefit to someone by eliminating the weakest and most defenseless of humans: the unborn. As Chesterton says with chilling accuracy: “They seek his life in order to take it away.”—-Lecture, Dale Ahlquist

tdc

Tim,Thank you for a thought provoking article, however some of the comments send shivers down my spine. How very sad that we live in a world with so much hate for people not like ourselves. The pompous, the elitists, the narcissist, the superior rise up and say kill those who are unworthy to enter our world. Who are you people? Not ones I would let my children be alone with! Have you ever seen and or heard an aborted fetus? I remember a lady having a miscarriage in a doctor’s office I worked at years ago. The weeks-old “mass of cells” I held in my hand, was definitely a baby. Anyone who approves of ripping a little infant apart, regardless of the mother’s situation is cold hearted and very scary. Humans have come up with a criteria for who is a viable person and who is not. Wait a minute, that is pretty convenient. If I want something my way, I’ll just get a bunch of people to agree with me and then we can say it is the right thing to do. Hey, just like the drug dealers do to the children in the neighborhood. Where is the logic in that?We approve of partial birth abortions and rip the limbs and heads off these gifts from God, yet give child molesters chance after chance to stop their crimes. I just don’t get it.People, stop crying, “I’m a victim”, “I shouldn’t have to have this baby, this burden”, “I want a baby that the rest of the people will think is perfect”, yada, yada, yada.Thank you Sarah Palin for standing up for the rights of unborn children. I pray that we stop making laws of convenience, and start focusing on the root cause of the problem. Lets get some “problem solvers” in the White House. Some with Black Belt, Six Sigma training. Stop the “I think this will help”, and “I want it my way”, and “Well, I’m not as bad as the other guy”, and concentrate on fixing the problems. I have one child who has a disability and he is the happiest of my three children. He absolutely loves life and gives more to make this a more tolerable place to live. Did you know that many Deaf parents are disappointed when they have a hearing child. Maybe they should have the right to abort the hearing child because it is not like them. Ridiculous indeed.

Kelly

I got halfway through these posts and could stand it no longer. My guess is a large portion of you are NOT working mothers or think that there is only one way to be a working mother. Also, to anyone who was conserned that Trig was being abused by being at the convention, all I saw was a contented baby being lovingly handled by his family. To babies that age, home is where their families are, there may be a lot of other distractions, but he was, for all intensive purposes, home. When my own daughter was that age, I could have sat down on the 50 yard line in the middle of a football game if I wanted to and she wouldn’t have minded as long as I was quick to nurse her when she asked. So please, to all those childless folks out there, don’t be so quick to criticize someone else s parenting decisions until you’ve had to make some of those same decisions yourselves. And for heaven’s sake, if we believe as a society that the disabled are leading tortured lives without any joy in them or that this world is so awful a place that we are selfish to bring anyone else, disabled or not into it, lets just push the big red button now and get it over with. You must be just the saddest people in the world.